The Denver Nuggets won their first NBA championship Monday night, downing the Miami Heat 94-89 at Ball Arena in Denver to take Game 5 of the NBA Finals.

Two-time MVP Nikola Jokić led the way for the Nuggets with a game-high 28 points and 16 rebounds. 

“It was an amazing effort by the team,” he told ABC after the game. “It was an ugly game. We couldn’t make shots but at the end, we figured out how to defend.”

The Serbian big man was voted Most Valuable Player of the NBA Finals, and is the first center to win the award named after the late Bill Russell since Shaquille O’Neal of the Lakers in 2002.   

Following the Game 5 victory, Nuggets coach Michael Malone hailed Jokić, who is rapidly establishing himself as one of basketball’s best ever centers, as “a great person.”

“He’s a great husband, father and son and brother,” Malone told reporters. “And on the basketball court he has proven time and time again that he’s the best player in the NBA. He’s our MVP, we love him and we’re thankful that he’s wearing a Nuggets’ uniform.”   

Buck Showalter turned to the oldest trick in a manager’s playbook in an attempt to extract results from his under performing team.

After the Mets lost for a seventh straight game on Friday, Showalter held a closed-door meeting, during which he stated the obvious: the team needed to play better.

According to a person who was in the room, players were urged to “dig down deep” and find “another level of competitiveness.”

Maybe Showalter’s words resonated on Saturday or maybe the Mets were just fortunate enough to have Kodai Senga pitching and due for a rebound after the clunker he produced in his last start.

This one adhered to the offseason blueprint: Senga rolled into the late innings without much resistance and the bullpen held, allowing the Mets to snap their longest losing streak in four years with a 5-1 victory over the Pirates at PNC Park.

Senga fired a two-hitter over seven innings, allowing one unearned run. The right-hander struck out six and walked four, helping the Mets to exhale after Justin Verlander and Tylor Megill gave them short, ineffective performances Thursday and Friday. 

The Atlanta Braves came back against the New York Mets for the third time in the series, completing a dramatic sweep against the NL East rival as the Braves walked it off, 13-10, in ten innings. 

As Atlanta improves to 38-24, the Mets drop their sixth straight game and continue their free-fall in the NL East standings.

An Ozzie Albies three-run home run sealed the deal after an Orlando Arcia homer in the bottom of the ninth was enough to force extra innings.

The rivalry continues to get more and more one-sided. After seeing several fans and media members react poorly to the first two games of the series, it will be interesting to see the fallout from the completed sweep. 

On the Mets broadcast, the postgame show brought up phrases that you never want to hear as a fan like “there’s a lot of season left,’ or “if things don’t turn up, changes need to be made.” 

To make matters worse for the Mets, this is the first time in their history that they have lost 3 consecutive games games when they held a 3-run lead. They’ve been playing baseball since 1962.