Denver Nuggets’ Forward Jeff Green slammed a dunk against Miami Heat in the Game 5 of the NBA finals, sending the arena on its feet.

With a 3-1 lead in the NBA Finals, the Nuggets are on the doorstep of history.

After taking Games 3 and 4 in Miami, Denver is now one win away from the first-ever NBA title in franchise history. Making the occasion even more special is that the Nuggets have an opportunity to win a championship in front of their home fans at Ball Arena.

The Denver Nuggets are now one win away from capturing the franchise’s first championship after beating the Miami Heat 108-95 in Game 4 on Friday night. Three Nuggets players scored in double figures, led by Aaron Gordon’s playoff career-high of 27 points, to go with Nikola Jokic’s 23 points and 21 points from Bruce Brown off the bench. With those three leading the way, it was a balanced effort from Denver, who overpowered a Heat team that once again struggled to keep pace with the Nuggets. While we’re still early in Game 5, it is the Heat who own a slim lead after the first 12 minutes of play. 

Miami was led by Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo in Game 4 who combined for 45 points, but it wasn’t enough to eek out a win and even up the series. As a result, the Heat now face a 3-1 deficit and are on the brink of elimination when they head to Denver.

“Yeah, just understand that we haven’t done anything,” Malone said. “I told our guys, the first thing I said (after the Game 4 victory), ‘We’re not celebrating. It’s a good win. We’ve done our job. But we’re not celebrating like we’ve done anything yet.'”

Malone’s plan over the weekend, in addition to figuring out how to get past the Heat one more time, was to have his players ignore all media — social and otherwise — and keep their minds on the task at hand as if it were still significantly out of reach.

“Don’t listen to everybody telling you how great you are because we haven’t done a damn thing yet,” Malone said. “We have to win another game to be world champions, and we’re going to do that by simply taking it one quarter at a time.