They came, they saw, they went bonkers. Delirious Nuggets fans erupted inside the Pepsi Center as their hometown team - led by a hometown hero - won the Western Conference semifinals over Dallas.
"It's absolutely been a storybook, and I couldn't write a better script - hopefully, I don't wake up anytime soon," said Chauncey Billups, the pride of Park Hill, who finished with 28 points, seven rebounds and a game-high 12 assists. "The win is for all the guys who have been here, haven't been able to get out of the first round and carried that weight. And it's for the city, for the fans." And so, with an electrifying 124-110 victory, the Nuggets advanced to the Western Conference finals for the first time in 24 years.
It was May 7, 1985, to be exact, when coach Doug Moe's Nuggets defeated Utah to advance to the conference finals against the Lakers. Tonight, the Nuggets will tune into Game 6 of the Lakers-Rockets series to see if Los Angeles closes it out or if Houston forces a Game 7. If No. 5-seeded Houston wins the series, No. 2 Denver has home-court advantage (starting Tuesday). But if the No. 1-seeded Lakers win tonight, they'll have home court (starting Sunday), just like last season, when they swept Denver in the first round.
That seems like eons ago.
"We're going to make a team beat us," said a confident George Karl, the Nuggets coach.
It's funny: For Nuggets fans, it's been a long wait, but for Billups, this is old hat, his seventh consecutive conference finals. The former Pistons star flirted with a triple-double Wednesday, closing out the series with a snarl, while Carmelo Anthony did so with his famous smile.
"Offensively," Dallas' Dirk No- witzki said of Melo, "there's nothing he can't do."
The Nuggets forward averaged 30 points for the series, and hit that number on the head Wednesday, a team-high. Anthony has arrived this postseason, notably with his game- winning 3-pointer in Game 3 and overall floor game complementing Billups' steady hand. A matchup with the Lakers would put Melo against Olympic teammate Kobe Bryant.
"Last summer, I was kind of the joke of the USA team, because we got rid of (some) of our guys, and I told everyone - watch, the Denver Nuggets are going to be there at the end of the year," Anthony said. "And we're here."
And so, it's goodbye to the Mavericks, who couldn't provide much of a matchup on court but provided more tabloid juiciness than Miss California, from Nowitzki's imprisoned girlfriend to owner Mark Cuban screaming an insult at Kenyon Martin's mom to the handful of Mavericks fans who treated the Nuggets' families like fraternity pledges.
As for the Nuggets , what makes this team so likable is that they weren't predestined. This isn't the Lakers or the Cavaliers, who have all but been pegged for the NBA Finals for months. This is a team of scrappy fighters.
Martin returned from two micro-
fracture knee surgeries; Dahntay Jones returned from the D-League and now starts in the NBA. Nene beat cancer; Chris Andersen beat substance abuse. Anthony and J.R. Smith are growing up in front of their fans. Billups, the homegrown warrior, bounced around among five different franchises before finding his game in Detroit. Now he's back in Denver, where his hoops dream was born and where he's making another one come true.
"The spirit was ready," said Karl, whose coaching helped changed the team's culture during the preseason. "And then Chauncey got here, we found hope, and then we found wins, then we found confidence and defense. And now we're in the conference finals."
Benjamin Hochman: 303-954-1294 or bhochman@denverpost.com ----------------- When's Game 1?
The Nuggets play the winner of the Lakers-Rockets series in the Western Conference finals. Los Angeles leads that series 3-2 and can close it out tonight at Houston. If the Lakers win, Game 1 of the Western finals will be Sunday afternoon in Los Angeles. If the Rockets win tonight, Game 7 of that series would be Sunday, and Game 1 of the finals would move to Tuesday. --------------- Highlights
Nene shines. After scoring 14 total points in Games 3 and 4, center Nene scored 17 on Wednesday and also grabbed seven rebounds.
K-Mart special. With 8:25 left in the second, Kenyon Martin made an emphatic two-handed slam over a helpless Brandon Bass. Martin made another rim-rattler with 51.9 seconds left that sent the fans into a frenzy.
Lowlights
Take a seat. Denver's Linas Kleiza, a key reserve in the regular season, didn't play. During the regular season, he averaged 9.9 points per game in 22.2 minutes.
Bird blanked. Chris Andersen battled foul trouble, much as he did in Game 3, and went scoreless in 14 minutes, but had five rebounds.
Benjamin Hochman, The Denver Post
