Game Day: Nuggets will be hard targets for Lakers, Clippers

Editor’s note: This is the Tuesday, June 13, 2023, edition of the “Game Day with Kevin Modesti” newsletter. To receive the newsletter in your inbox, sign up here.

Good morning. From the Lakers’ and Clippers’ vantage point, the scariest thing the Denver Nuggets did in the past two weeks was not Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray steamrolling the Miami Heat to win their city’s first pro basketball championship. I’ll explain in a minute.

There’s other sports news:

• The Angels began a series against the first-place Rangers with a come-from-behind, 12-inning win, the tying and go-ahead runs coming on Shohei Ohtani’s 19th and 20th homers – a “statement victory,” Jeff Fletcher writes from Texas.
• The Dodgers are trying to figure out their bullpen, which has the fourth-worst ERA in baseball, as they go into a six-game homestand against the White Sox and Giants.
• Making a trip to the White House as NCAA champions were the UCLA women’s soccer and men’s volleyball teams and the USC women’s beach volleyball team.

U.S. Open previews continue:

• Collin Morikawa (La Canada High) is in one of the groups to watch when the tournament tees off Thursday.
• On a Los Angeles Country Club course that few pros have played, UCLA sophomore Omar Morales has the advantage of local knowledge.
• Here’s a spectators’ guide to the course, players, tickets and TV coverage of the first golf major in L.A. since 1995.
• The U.S. Open isn’t the only tournament this week in L.A. — or on a George Thomas-designed course — with amateurs playing for the city championship at Harding.

Now, about the Nuggets, who won ugly last night in Denver to complete a 4-1 triumph over the Heat in the NBA Finals, cap off one of the most impressive playoff runs in recent NBA history, and give owner Stan Kroenke an NBA title to go with the Rams’ Super Bowl victory and the Colorado Avalanche’s Stanley Cup in the previous two years.

No surprises there. After the Nuggets swept the Lakers in the Western Conference finals, columnists Jim Alexander and Mirjam Swanson said in this newsletter that they picked Denver to win the NBA Finals in five games. Actually, Swanson didn’t wait until the conference finals were over, writing after the Nuggets took a 3-0 lead against the Lakers: “Congratulations, Denver, on your first NBA title.”

The surprise might be the way the Nuggets, having established themselves as the team to beat for the Lakers, Clippers and the rest of the league, were already at work on remaining elusive targets. They took the rare step, for a team in the middle of the NBA Finals, of making a trade to help lay the groundwork for the next few seasons.

In the trade last Friday, the Nuggets sent a 2029 first-round draft pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder and got back a second-round pick this year (37th overall) and first- and second-rounders in 2024. The relatively low-cost talent those picks bring will be key to maintaining an expensive roster led by Jokic ($54.4 million a year), Murray ($31.7 million) and Michael Porter Jr. ($35.9 million).

Sorry to say, if you’re a Lakers or Clippers fan, those Denver stars won’t be breaking up anytime soon, Jokic’s contract running through 2028, Porter’s through 2027, Murray’s through 2025; the biggest Nugget eligible for free agency this summer is Bruce Brown Jr.

“General manager Calvin Booth seems intent on constructing a contender built to last,” columnist Mark Kiszla wrote on Saturday in the Denver Post, an SCNG sister paper. “Rather than sitting back at the Finals, he wheeled and dealed on the morning of Game 4 or future draft picks.

“Now with the champagne so close the Nuggets can get a whiff of the sweet smell of success, the goal is not one, not two … but as many rings as Jokic can win before he retires and returns home to Serbia.”

This morning, the Nuggets are celebrating in the present and planning for the future.

“While rolling through four rounds of the playoffs with a 16-4 record, Jokic thrilled us with the most dominating playoff performance the NBA has seen since (Michael) Jordan in his prime, averaging 30 points, 13.5 rebounds and 9.5 assists,” Kiszla, who has been with the Denver Post since 1983, wrote last night. “With utmost respect to Broncos legend John Elway, we all have the pleasure of bearing witness to the best player in the history of Denver sports.

“The eyes of every long-suffering hoops lover in Colorado are now as big as saucers. and maybe a little misty. The rain of this soggy spring has turned to tears of unbridled joy. Fire up the fire trucks. The first victory parade in Nuggets history? It won’t be the last.”

TODAY

• Angels and starter Jaime Barria might have caught a break when the Rangers scratched Jon Gray from tonight’s game because of a blister (5:05 p.m., BSW).
• Dodgers have Tony Gonsolin, on extra rest, opening a three-game series at home against the White Sox (7:10 p.m., SNLA).

BETWEEN THE LINES

The Golden Knights, leading the Panthers 3-1, are -184 favorites to win the Stanley Cup tonight in Las Vegas. Due in part to the uncertain status of Florida’s Matthew Tkachuk, the odds are the most one-sided for any game in the series.

280 CHARACTERS

“This would be a super fun game to watch if I didn’t have to keep rewriting my story every 5 minutes.” — Angels beat writer Jeff Fletcher (@JeffFletcherOCR) as last night’s game went to the 12th inning, or any reporter covering a back-and-forth game on deadline.

1,000 WORDS

Sharing the moment: NBA Finals MVP Nikola Jokic celebrates the Nuggets’ championship with daughter Ognjena after a 94-89 victory over the Heat in Game 5 last night in Denver. Photo is by Matthew Stockman for Getty Images.

YOUR TURN

Thanks for reading. Send suggestions, comments and questions by email at kmodesti@scng.com and via Twitter @KevinModesti.

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