Nuggets Defeat Heat In NBA Finals—Bagging Billionaire Sports Mogul Stan Kroenke His First NBA Title

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The Denver Nuggets defeated the Miami Heat 94-89 to win their first ever NBA Finals on Monday night, closing out a dominant five-game series led by 2022 NBA MVP Nikola Jokic and sharpshooter Jamal Murray, delivering yet another major championship for billionaire Stan Kroenke’s sports empire.

The Denver Nuggets defeated the Miami Heat in Game Five of the NBA Finals.

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Key Facts

In their first ever NBA Finals appearance, the Nuggets took the series in Game 5 at home Monday night, though the Heat kept the game competitive, holding Denver to a one- to two-score lead throughout most of the fourth, and taking the lead on 13 straight points from Jimmy Butler with just under 2 minutes left to play.

Denver relied on Jokic, the team’s 6’11” center, who led the team with 28 points, while defensively the Nuggets kept the Heat to their second-lowest score in the series, which had been marked by remarkably low scores.

The Heat’s two stars, Butler and big man Bam Adebayo, were both kept under 21 points, while a speculated come-back from Miami’s Tyler Herro—who was injured earlier in the playoffs—never came.

The Nuggets, the NBA’s 22nd most valuable team ($1.93 billion), were the outright favorites before Game 5, by an 8.5 point spread, according to the BetMGM Sportsbook and a moneyline of -210.5, meaning fans betting on the Nuggets would need to bet $210.50 to profit $100.

Forbes Valuation

We estimate Nuggets owner Kroenke’s real-time net worth stands at a comfortable $12.9 billion, making him the world’s 139th richest person. Kroenke, a real estate mogul married to Walmart’s billionaire heir Ann Walton Kroenke, has built one of the world’s most impressive sports team portfolios through the holding company Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, which also controls the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams, NHL’s Colorado Rapids, MLS’ Colorado Rapids and the English Premier League club Arsenal. As majority owner, Arsenal has won four FA Cups, the Avalanche have won two Stanley Cups, the Rapids have won a single MLS Cup and the Rams won Super Bowl LVI. He also has an extensive real estate portfolio, primarily around retail shopping plazas around Walmart stores.

Big Number

$1,071. That was the get-in price (the price of the cheapest available seat) to Monday night’s game at Denver’s Ball Arena just hours before tip-off, according to data from TicketiQ. The average ticket price topped $3,200, making it the Nuggets’ most expensive game in franchise history, though it’s still more than $1,000 short of the average ticket price to last year’s NBA Finals Game 5 match between the Golden State Warriors and the Boston Celtics—$4,248 with a get-in price of $1,098.

Key Background

The Nuggets dominated the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference Finals to advance to the NBA Finals, sweeping a star-studded but seventh-seeded Lakers team, and prompting its billionaire forward and four-time Finals champion LeBron James to contemplate retirement in a post-game interview. The closest the Nuggets previously came to a title was in 1978, 1985, 2009 and 2020, when the team lost in the Western Conference Finals. The Heat—the Eastern Conference’s eight seed—have been the NBA’s 2023 playoff underdog, pulling off an astounding upset in the first round over the one-seed Milwaukee Bucks, and going on to defeat the New York Knicks and Boston Celtics.

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Key Facts

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