Five winners of the NBA’s 2020 bubble postseason

3. The Denver Nuggets’ future

Even as they occupied the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference, few if any viewed the Denver Nuggets as a realistic threat to spoil a potential battle for Los Angeles in the conference finals.

Denver, of course, didn’t just advance to its first Western Conference Finals since 2009. They didn’t just take down a title favorite in the LA Clippers. After overcoming consecutive 3-1 series deficits, and three straight double-digit holes against LA, the Nuggets finally have the national attention and that grip isn’t likely to loosen anytime soon.

We knew of Nikola Jokic’s stardom and he did little to make us forget with playoff averages of 24.4 points on a line of .519/.429/.825 with 9.8 rebounds and 5.7 assists per game.

Maybe the biggest surprise of this postseason came from Jamal Murray, who had a breakout run in last year’s playoffs only to top it in historical fashion this season.

Two 50-point outings sandwiched a 42-point performance to force a Game 6 against the Utah Jazz. He completed a stunning comeback against the Clippers with 40 points in Game 7. Across 19 games, Murray averaged 26.5 points on a line of .505/.453/.897 along with 6.6 assists and 4.8 rebounds a night.

Those two have grown to form a one-two punch with as much synergy as the next duo. If that were all the Nuggets had going for them, that’d still earn plenty of praise. But there’s more.

Michael Porter Jr. shot 38.2 percent on 4.7 3-point attempts per game, pulling down 6.7 rebounds in under 24 minutes of nightly action. After he averaged 15.8 points per game in the conference finals, Denver would be foolish to let Jerami Grant walk in free agency, especially considering the efforts he put forth to guard both LeBron James and Anthony Davis through those five games.

Most young teams grow at a steady pace, but this Nuggets bunch continues to smash through their collective ceiling. Grant is the oldest among that quartet at 25, which means the only place this team that just made history is going is up.