Nuggets star Nikola Jokic named NBA Finals MVP - ESPN

DENVER — Nikola Jokic might not have won his third straight Most Valuable Player award this season, but he still ended up with an MVP trophy after all.

In addition to getting the championship he has coveted, Jokic was named NBA Finals MVP after the Denver Nuggets defeated the Miami Heat 94-89 in Game 5 at Ball Arena.

Jokic closed out Miami with 28 points, 16 rebounds and four assists to help the Nuggets win the franchise's first NBA title. Like each opponent the Nuggets faced this postseason, the Heat had very little answers for Jokic.

When asked how it feels to be an NBA champion, Jokic told ESPN's Lisa Salters on the court: «It's good. It's good. The job is done, and we can go home now.»

Prior to this championship run, Jokic, 28, was already considered one of the best players in the league. But now that he has won a championship and a Finals MVP, one NBA Hall of Famer says this catapults the Serbian big man into a different stratosphere.

«It puts him in the legendary category for what he's done statistically in the Finals,» former Detroit Pistons great Isiah Thomas told ESPN. «I don't know if there's anyone who's ever had a statistical run in the NBA Finals as a center as he had in these categories.»

After a couple of years of much debate over who the regular-season MVP should have been between Jokic, Joel Embiid and Giannis Antetokounmpo, Thomas said it's hard to argue who is the best player in the world.

«Hey, right now, when you're the champ and your team [wins the title], you're the best player and the best team,» said Thomas, the 1990 Finals MVP. «And it may not be for [the next] five years. But when you're talking about like now, the best player now is him. And the best team is the Denver Nuggets.

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