The Denver Nuggets celebrated their NBA championship win during a parade Thursday and took some time to throw some shade at the Los Angeles Lakers.
The Denver Nuggets won their first-ever NBA championship on Monday, defeating the Miami Heat in five games. Next before entering the off-season was Thursday’s championship parade, a date the NBA world found out when Nikola Jokic asked when it would be because he wanted to go home.
Nuggets fans gathered in Denver for the show, where they got to watch Kentavius Caldwell Pope has a beer drinking contest with a fan Christian Brown holds the WWE Championship. But during the ceremony, the Nuggets threw some shade at the Los Angeles Lakers, who swept them in the Western Conference Finals.
Altitude TV reporter and host Vic Lombardi introduced Nuggets coach Mike Malone by saying, “He came into this world as the son of a coach, but in this playoffs, he’s become a Lakers dad!”
The Nuggets overshadow the Lakers during the NBA championship review
Lombardi also said, “The NBA put that in your pipe and smoke it.” This refers to Malones’ comments about the national media narrative about the Lakers making amends rather than the Nuggets winning Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals.
Here’s Malone’s full quote for context:
“A lot of our guys, frankly, may or may not admit it. You know, I won Game 1 of the playoffs and all everyone talked about was the Lakers,” Malone said, h / t senior commander. “Let’s be honest, that was a national narrative. It was, ‘The Lakers were doing fine. They were down 1-0 but they figured something out. Nobody talked about Nikola’s historic performance. Now he’s got 13 triple-doubles, third all-time. What he’s doing is commanding. Incredible, but the narration wasn’t about the Nuggets. The narration wasn’t about Nikolas. The narration was about the Lakers and their mods. So you know, you put that in your gulp, you smoke it, you come back and you know what, we’re going up 2-0.”
Malone even wore a T-shirt saying, “Put that in your pipe and smoke it,” with a picture of Larry O’Brien’s trophy, on the show.
The Nuggets were the best team in the Western Conference entering the NBA Playoffs, and they sure looked like that. Malone’s team has never played more than six games in a single playoff series. The Phoenix Suns were the only team to defeat the Nuggets twice in a series during a second round game. Now, they have the Larry O’Brien trophy to show for it.
Once the festivities are over, Malone and the Nuggets Organization will look for ways to ensure they have a legitimate chance to repeat as champions.