🏀 Denver Is Dreaming

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This could be it, folks. This could be the last Enjoy Basketball newsletter of the NBA season. Don’t worry, we’ll be here all summer long, but we’re still in our feels for now. The season feels so long when we’re deep in February, but then June comes around, and you realize how fast time flew by. But we’ve still got a lot of stuff to cover, so we’ll get our head in the game and do just that.

Today’s Lineup

Oh So Close: Denver is 48 minutes away from their first NBA championship 🏆

EB Roundtable: If you could attend any game in history, where are you going? 🧐

New Coach In The 6ix: Who is Toronto’s new head man Darko Rajakovic? ✍️

PrizePicks

Even if the NBA season does end tonight, PrizePicks will keep supplying you with the best way to play daily fantasy, 365 days a year. They don’t mess around, and that’s why we love ‘em. For tonight’s Game 5, we’re believing in the stars, and think AG keeps up the energy he had in Game 4. What do you think?

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Denver’s Duo Comes Up Huge (No, Not That One)

The Larry O’Brien trophy is so close that Denver can almost taste it. Probably tastes like a trophy. But if they do end up finishing the job, they probably won’t mind:

We’ve seen Denver’s dynamic duo come up monumentally clutch time and time again this postseason, and Game 4 was no exception: Aaron Gordon scored 27 (16 in the first half) and Bruce Brown scored 21 ((including 16 in the second half) to propel Denver to a win in a game they led for about 95% of the time. Wait, are those not the guys you were thinking of?

Oh, right, those guys. They had a nice game as well (23 & 12 for Jokic and 12 assists to 0 turnovers for Jamal Murray), but the superstar role players might have been what lifted the Nugs over the top in G4.

Denver just has too many guys. Which has left other teams in the playoffs asking:

Miami’s shooting continued to cool down (8/25 3PT), and they turned the ball over 14 times, a series high. Is that a winning formula?

Darko Rajakovic, You Are A Toronto Raptor

Well, you are the coach of the Raptors, anyway. Grizzlies assistant Darko Rajakovic will become Toronto’s new head man, it was announced this weekend.

While this may not be the flashy hire that some Raptors fans were hoping for after the team parted ways with Nick Nurse, Rajakovic’s resume is impressive nonetheless. He has some head coaching experience—leading the Tulsa 66ers of the NBA G-League from 2012-14—and is currently an assistant coach of the Serbian national team. After hanging around the NBA coaching world for a decade-plus, Rajakovic (who talks about his background a bit here) now gets a chance to lead an NBA team of his own.

EB Roundtable

Picture this: you’ve been granted the ability to travel back in time to any NBA game ever played—but only once! Don’t ask why or how this works, just trust us.

So, what legendary game will you be attending? Let’s find out.

For an entire generation of NBA fans, Game 7 of the 2016 NBA Finals might be the defining moment of their NBA fandom. That this game even happened is incredible, but the fact that it somehow lived up to the hype is legendary. There are definitely worse options than reliving one of the most memorable games of the past decade.

You want to talk about drama? Well, this game had drama. Two of the most famous teams and rivals in all of sports, battling on the biggest stage. This game also features one of the best Mike Breen “bang” calls ever, too. And from a wholly unlikely source, too…

We’re not conspiracy theorists at EB…but we’d also like to see Wilt’s 100-point game in person. Just because there’s no video of it, and we want to watch history happen!

Frozen Moments

• This might have been the most bizarre NBA season we can remember…

• He may be 3-1, but Michael Malone knows the series is far from over.

• Sue Bird. Basketball legend.

What We’re Enjoying

Beef History: The good folks over at Secret Base make some of the best sports content out there, and their YouTube series Beef History is no different. What sparks feuds between hyper-competitive athletes? These videos do a tremendous job telling stories that many of us have forgotten about, like LeBron (and Jay-Z) vs. DeShawn Stevenson (and Soulja Boy).

Signing Off

And that wraps things up around here! We’ll see you real soon, but we’re still going to miss you for a few days. Drink a lot of water this week, and try to put your phone down an hour before you sleep. You’ll rest so much better! You’re doing great. Talk soon.

-Quinn Everts

Trivia Answer: That would be 2012! Every draft since then has seen at least one international prospect picked in the top 14…that probably won’t change this year.

Before you go…