Jayson Tatum did not precisely say that the Denver Nuggets had been the one group that would have overwhelmed the Boston Celtics final season, however, in an interview with The Boston Globe’s Gary Washburn, he mentioned he was stunned the Nuggets did not make it out of the Western Convention. And by the sound of it, when the Minnesota Timberwolves eradicated Denver within the second spherical of the playoffs, he wasn’t precisely dissatisfied.
From the Boston Globe:
“Folks all the time ask me, when did you guys know you had been going to win a championship?” Tatum mentioned. “When Minnesota beat Denver, I felt like Denver was the one group that they matched up finest with us. I assumed that we had been going to play Denver within the Finals and it was going to be a superb one.
“However after we had been in Dallas and we went up, 3-0, oh my God. No one has ever come again from 0-3, so I keep in mind getting again to the locker room and I keep in mind saying, I do not know what sport it will be, however we will win the championship. That was a bizarre feeling. I wasn’t in a position to sleep that night time and I keep in mind the morning of Recreation 4 we had shootaround, and I had by no means been within the place that if we win tonight, we’re champions. We had been at shootaround and everyone was making an attempt to behave regular. I could not take a nap. We misplaced by like 30. We wished to win so unhealthy. We had been so anxious and so tight. However I knew after we had been coming again house for Recreation 5, we had been going to win.”
The Celtics misplaced each of their regular-season conferences in opposition to the Nuggets. On Jan. 19 at TD Backyard, they entered the sport with a 20-0 document at house, however Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray mixed for 69 factors on 29-for-43 taking pictures to make it 20-1. On March 7, regardless of 41 factors from Jaylen Brown, Boston got here up quick in Denver, with Jokic recording a 32-point triple-double. Each video games went all the way down to the wire, they usually each felt like Finals previews. They could have been, too, if the Nuggets hadn’t blown a 20-point lead within the second half of Recreation 7 in opposition to the Timberwolves.
Earlier than going 16-3 within the playoffs, Boston went 64-18 within the common season. No group got here near that document, nor to the Celtics’ plus-11.7 level differential. That they had a traditionally dominant season, and it is potential that, had Denver overwhelmed Minnesota after which overwhelmed the Dallas Mavericks, it could have gone down in 5 video games within the Finals similar to Dallas did. For what it is price, then-Nuggets guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope mentioned on Draymond Inexperienced’s podcast that they’d “no fuel” within the playoffs and will have misplaced to the Los Angeles Lakers within the first spherical. Denver received that sequence 4-1, however needed to overcome double-digit deficits in three of its wins. Murray made two game-winners in opposition to the Lakers and scored 35 factors in Recreation 7 in opposition to Minnesota, however total wasn’t almost as environment friendly as ordinary within the playoffs (40.2% from the sphere, 31.5% from deep, 47.4% true taking pictures) whereas coping with accidents to each his calf and his elbow.
Denver, nonetheless, was the one group to brush its season sequence in opposition to Boston. The Nuggets had been the defending champs on the time, and getting right into a battle of execution with a Jokic-led group is usually a scary proposition. When you’re nonetheless questioning what would’ve occurred in the event that they’d made it to the Finals, you are not alone. By saying that he thought the matchup “was going to be a superb one,” Tatum is underselling it. Main as much as the playoffs, this was the Finals that many wished to see. It had the potential to be an absolute basic.
