Williamson scores with Nuggets

Just imagine . . . you are sitting, or mostly standing, in the front row directly behind the team bench as the Denver Nuggets are seconds away from winning their first NBA championship. Can you imagine? Surely, your last name would have to be Elway or Manning or Wilson, right?

Not so for Niwot High School's Jamie Williamson and her family. Last Monday night as the Nuggets were enroute to closing out their best-of-seven series with the Miami Heat, 94-89, and capturing their first NBA Championship, the Williamsons were on the floor right behind Nikola Jokić, Jamal Murray, Michael Porter, Jr., and the rest of the Nuggets team.

"It was crazy getting to see Jokić and all the other players up close," said the senior-to-be, who attended the game with her dad James, brother Jarit, and sister Hannah.

"I was actually up in Estes Park on the day of Game Five and my dad texted us and said that he had a surprise for us, and we had tickets for the last game. So, I had to drive all the way down (from Estes Park) and I had like 10 minutes to get ready before we had to leave for Denver. It was definitely worth it," she said with a huge smile.

And, from the tip-off of the game, the atmosphere at the Ball Arena was raucous.

"Yeah, it was insane. On every three-pointer, really any score at all, everybody was just super wild," Jamie recalled. "And it was really a close game, so that just added to it. I was pretty confident they were going to win, but at times it got so close."

The tension got particularly high for the Nugget fans when Heat star Jimmy Butler erased a seven-point Denver lead by scoring eight straight points to give Miami a one-point lead with 2:45 remaining in the game. But with solid defense and hard work on the offensive boards, the Nuggets were able to recapture the lead and led by three points, 92-89, with just 15 seconds to play when guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope was fouled and then stepped the foul line. Caldwell-Pope sank both free throws to seal the historic victory.

"The most exciting part, I think, was towards the end," Jamie said. "When he made those free throws, I think everybody knew it was going to happen and everyone was just going crazy."

"This season was so much fun to watch and then to win the first championship, that's pretty incredible. And to be there was amazing," she said.

With Jokić, Murray, Porter, and Company returning pretty much intact, the Nuggets will be a solid favorite to repeat as champions, a feat that hasn't happened in the NBA since the Golden State Warriors won back-to-back titles in 2017 and 2018. So, does Jamie think she'll be back next year to watch the Nuggets make a second trip to the NBA finals?

"I really hope so. We'll see how likely that is. It's going to be hard to win two times in a row. That might be pushing it, but I'd be okay with it."