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The Denver Nuggets looked as dominant early in the 2023-24 NBA season as they did during their 2023 Finals run, when they obliterated every team en route to the title. During that postseason run, the Nuggets lost just four games, proving they were a level above the rest of the field.
Denver didn't exactly have an easy road to the championship either. While their stellar play in the regular season earned them sole seed and home field advantage throughout the postseason, as it shook up the rest of the standings and the Play-In Tournament, the Nuggets certainly didn't draw the most breezy opponents around. . Let's see how the Nuggets fare against the general championship predictions.
Denver Nuggets dominate the championship in 2023
For the first round, they played the upstart Minnesota Timberwolves and got the full brunt of Anthony Edwards' coming out party as a true NBA superstar. The T-Wolves had made many roster moves to try to build a better roster around Edwards, including adding multiple Defensive Player of the Year winner Rudy Gobert. Even with Gobert joining a talented squad with Edwards, Karl-Anthony Towns and Jaden McDaniels, Denver made quick work of the new Wolves, dismissing them in just five games.
After their gentleman's sweep of the Wolves, the Nuggets earned the privilege of playing the Phoenix Suns and their new superstar duo of Devin Booker and Kevin Durant. While most of the Colorado sports betting landscape still had faith in the Nuggets, KD's acquisition created some fear in the local betting markets as futures betting dwindled. Denver's depth was the differentiator as they raced past Phoenix in the second round, but the offensive bigness of Book and KD was able to steal two wins from the Suns.
The Nuggets reward for toppling Phoenix was a second-round matchup against LeBron James, Anthony Davis and the other Los Angeles Lakers. Any series against James, one of the two greatest players in the history of the league, should not be taken lightly. The series ended in a sweep in Denver's favor, but all games went down to the wire. The sweep was a raging show of support for Denver's dominance, not any form of indictment of James and the Lakers. In that series, the two-man play of Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray simply proved to be too much for the veteran Lakers to handle for an entire series.
In the finals, they ran into a red-hot Miami Heat team led by Jimmy Butler in a Cinderella run that started in the Play-In Tournament and resulted in upsets over Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks, the New York Knicks and the Boston Celtics. Miami seemed like the team of destiny, not only shocking fans around the world during their run, but also surviving a thrilling Celtics comeback from a 3-0 lead, only to win a Game 7 to record the first reverse sweep in avoid the history of the NBA and advance to the finals.
Denver Nuggets 2024 NBA Championship Odds
And yet, Nikola Jokic and the rest of the Denver Nuggets weren't afraid of fate. They made quick work of a depleted Heat team, eliminating them in just five quick games to seal their title run and come home with the Larry O'Brien.
Despite their dominance during that postseason and their league-leading 6-1 record entering the 2023-24 season, the Nuggets have yet to earn the respect of Vegas prospects. Denver may not have made the splashiest additions of the offseason, but they should be the favorites until proven otherwise. Still, most sportsbooks are behind both the Boston Celtics and Milwaukee Bucks in championship odds. BetMGM has them tied for the third-best odds with the Phoenix Suns at +550. Who would have thought that the defending champion would turn out to be a good choice for the title.
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