It took a little longer than expected after the Denver Nuggets and Miami Heat both took 3-0 leads in the conference finals, but we now have an NBA Finals matchup, and no matter what happens from here, we're days away from seeing history.
If Miami wins, the Heat will complete arguably the most shocking run in postseason history and become the first 8-seed to win an NBA title. If Denver wins, the Nuggets will take home the first title in franchise history, joining the San Antonio Spurs as the only former ABA teams to win NBA championships.
Before the series tips off Thursday (8:30 p.m. ET on ABC), let's take a look at six notable stats and trends that could come to define the 2023 NBA Finals and determine the league's next champion.
1. Overwhelming odds
Miami is making its seventh Finals appearance since 2006, the most in the NBA in that span (Golden State is next with six). Five of Miami's playoff rotation players -- Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo, Kyle Lowry, Kevin Love and Duncan Robinson -- have previous Finals experience. Despite that, it's the Nuggets -- making their first Finals appearance -- who enter the series as massive favorites.
Based on the opening line of -360, Denver would be the third-largest favorite in the Finals over the past 20 seasons. The Heat are currently at +300, nearly the same odds they had in the 2020 Finals when they lost the bubble championship in Orlando, Florida, to LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers.
The only bigger favorites over the past two decades also matched up against James -- the 2018 Warriors who paired Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry, and the Spurs who met James in his first trip to the Finals in 2007. Both of those series ended in sweeps via the favorites.
The oddsmakers appear to be more swayed by Denver's sustainable season-long excellence as opposed to Miami's stunning postseason upsets. The Nuggets had the sixth-best point differential in the league in the regular season, while the Heat were actually outscored by their opponents (they're the third such team to reach the NBA Finals). On paper, the matchup doesn't look close. But Butler doesn't play on paper -- just ask the Milwaukee Bucks, New York Knicks and Boston Celtics.
2. The pathways
These two teams have each traveled strange roads to get here.
After losing to the Atlanta Hawks at home in their first play-in game, the Heat trailed their second play-in game with under three minutes remaining against the Chicago Bulls. Miami ended that game on a 15-1 run, then proceeded to win 11 of its first 14 games in the playoffs. The Heat have knocked off the 1-seed, 5-seed and 2-seed in the East, forcing the top teams in their conference to ask hard questions about their coaches and personnel. They're the first 8-seed to reach the Finals in a full 82-game season.
Meanwhile, Denver entered the Western Conference bracket as the 1-seed, and has looked the part. The Nuggets have gone 12-3 in the postseason and have yet to face elimination. And while the Heat had to beat the teams with the two best regular-season records to get to the Finals, the Nuggets are the fourth team to reach this stage without facing a team with a win percentage of .550 or above -- and the first since 1959. Yes, teams led by James and Durant are scarier opponents than their seeds suggest, but in terms of regular-season résumés, the Nuggets' playoff pathway has been unique.
In total, Denver will face teams with combined seeds of 27 this postseason, the highest for any team in a single postseason since seeding began in 1984, surpassing the 1998-99 Spurs team that coincidentally beat the last 8-seed to make it this far, the Knicks. That Spurs win in 1999 was San Antonio's first NBA title and launched an unlikely Western Conference dynasty led by international stars. Denver is hoping the similarities continue.
3. 'Playoff Jimmy'
If Miami has any chance to shock the world, it will need another great series from Butler, who is averaging 28.5 points per game this postseason, second best among Eastern Conference players (Trae Young, whose Hawks were eliminated in the first round, averaged 29.2 PPG). However, Butler hasn't exactly been "Playoff Jimmy" of late.
After averaging 37.6 PPG in the first round against the Bucks, he dipped to 24.6 in five games against the Knicks (missing one game because of a sprained ankle) and 24.7 PPG in the seven-game conference finals. Over the final four games against the Celtics, Butler was held to 20.8 PPG on 36.9% shooting.
The good news for Butler is that Denver's defense -- while improved in the postseason -- isn't as strong as Milwaukee's or Boston's. The Nuggets ranked just 15th in the league in defensive rating in the regular season (the Bucks were fourth, the Celtics were second). Still, if the Heat are going to pull off one more historic upset, Butler will likely need to be the best scorer in multiple games -- which won't be an easy task against Denver's dynamic duo.
4. Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray
It's hard to overstate just how great Jokic and Murray have been in the playoffs. It's tempting to call the Jokic-Murray combo the best playoff duo we've seen since Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal. It might sound outlandish, but consider these two statistical nuggets (no pun intended):
Murray became the second player to average 30 points on 50-40-90 shooting in multiple playoff series, joining Durant.
Jokic is the third player in league history to average a triple-double entering the Finals (1982 Magic Johnson, 1967 Wilt Chamberlain; both of their teams won)
Those individual achievements are awesome, but here's the scary part: They are at their best when they play together. This two-man game is like the NBA Jam video game in real life. The Jokic-Murray pairing has become unstoppable in both handoffs and pick-and-roll actions.
Murray and Jokic have created 24.5 points per game directly from handoffs and on-ball screens when running the plays together in these playoffs, the most by any two players in a single postseason over the past five years, per Second Spectrum tracking. Including the regular season and playoffs, Murray and Jokic have assisted each other 343 times this season, the most by any duo. No other duo even reached 300.
And while Butler gets a lot of attention for his "Playoff Jimmy" reputation, he's not the star in this series who steps up the most come playoff time. Murray has averaged 16.9 PPG in his career during the regular season. That number jumps to 25.4 PPG in the playoffs, the largest difference by any player in NBA history with at least 20 playoff games played. Second on that list? That'd be Jokic, who goes from 20.2 PPG to 27.3.
Miami's defense deserves credit for slowing down Boston's second-ranked offense in the East finals, but to win it all, it must now slow down the hottest two-man combo in the world.
5. Caleb Martin and Miami's jump shooting
One reason the Heat have won three consecutive series is that their jump shooting has caught fire. During the regular season, Miami ranked 23rd in the NBA by averaging 1.01 points per jump shot; its shooting didn't scare anyone. During the postseason things have changed. The Heat rank second among all playoff teams by averaging 1.09 points per jump shot (however, the team that ranks first is the team they're facing in the Finals). Robinson and Max Strus have helped, but nobody has fueled this surge in shooting efficiency more than Martin.
Martin had a case for Eastern Conference finals MVP in large part because he averaged nearly 20 points per game in the series while converting a blistering 60.2% of his shots. This postseason, Miami's 27-year-old small forward has made 43.8% of his 3s but also an incredible 16 of his 20 2-point jumpers. If he can keep this up, Miami has a chance to go shot for shot with Denver's high-octane offense; if he regresses, it's hard to see how Miami can win.
6. The Spo effect
Erik Spoelstra is making his sixth Finals appearance as head coach. That ties Gregg Popovich and Steve Kerr for the most among active coaches and is fourth most all time, behind only Phil Jackson, Red Auerbach and Spoelstra's mentor Pat Riley.
There is no doubt that Spoelstra is one of the league's best coaches, but this run might be his masterpiece. He has guided a banged-up 8-seed with a negative regular-season point differential to the Finals. Not only have Tyler Herro and Victor Oladipo been unavailable for a vast majority of this postseason, but the Heat have played a stunning seven undrafted players so far.
That is the most undrafted players to play in a postseason for a Finals-bound team in the modern draft era (since 1966-67), but it gets better. A full 52% of Miami's points in its seven-game win over Boston came from undrafted players. How rare is that? The Heat are now the first team in the modern draft era to have at least half their points come from undrafted players in a playoff series. The only other team even at 40%? The Heat in this year's conference semifinals against the Knicks.
On offense, Martin, Strus, Robinson and Gabe Vincent have not looked like undrafted talent, and on the other side of the floor, Spoelstra's reliance on zone has become the team's signature defensive element. The Heat ran more zone than any other team during the regular season, according to Second Spectrum tracking, and that zone has already frustrated both Milwaukee and Boston this postseason. Boston averaged just 0.90 points per possession vs. zone in the conference finals, per Second Spectrum, while Miami's non-zone defenses allowed the Celtics 1.17 points per possession.
The Heat ran zone for 99 possessions in the series, the third most by any team in a series over the past 10 postseasons. The Celtics also shot 8-for-46 (17.4%) on 3-pointers vs. zone in the series.
However, Spoelstra now faces his greatest challenge this postseason. If you could create a player to pick apart a zone defense from the free throw line, that player might look a lot like Jokic, who is leading all postseason players in assists and is also the second-leading paint scorer in these playoffs. The Heat's zone has not faced a foe like the Nuggets yet in this magical run, and how the Heat scheme to slow Jokic down could be the difference between pulling off another upset or making a quick exit.
Matt Williams of ESPN Stats & Information contributed research for this article.