NBA Finals 2023 - Sights and sounds from Heat-Nuggets Game 1 - ESPN

The 2023 NBA Finals are here.

The Denver Nuggets and Miami Heat took two different routes to the championship. Denver cruised through the Western Conference finals with a resounding sweep of the Los Angeles Lakers and have been off for 10 days prior to Thursday's Game 1. The Nuggets are playing in their first NBA Finals in team history. Miami, on the other hand, is in its seventh NBA Finals since 2006. The Heat had to rally through two play-in games before cruising past the Milwaukee Bucks and New York Knicks. It looked like Miami would easily reach the Finals after jumping out to a 3-0 series lead to the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference finals. Then the Celtics rallied to win three straight games to force a Game 7.

The Heat didn't panic, however, and cruised in that game to have another chance at taking home the Larry O'Brien trophy.

Tickets are going for over $1,000. Jimmy Butler has already made his prediction to tennis star Coco Gauff while most of ESPN's experts are picking the Nuggets to win the series.

Here are all the happenings around Game 1:

Let's get busy. <a href=«https://twitter.com/hashtag/NBAFinals?src=hash&ref_src=» https:>#NBAFinals

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On the way