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The REAL power behind the North Korean throne revealed
The REAL power behind the North Korean throne revealed: Explosive new book exposes Kim Jong-un's little-known sister as a ruthless psychopath who executes officials for 'getting on her nerves' and is tipped to succeed him as dictator
By TOM LEONARD FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 08:37 EDT, 25 June 2023 | UPDATED: 09:03 EDT, 25 June 2023
Always careful to walk at least several paces behind her baby-faced brother and keep out of shot if cameras are around, she looks so pale and fragile that its seems a strong wind might knock her down.
Indeed, compared to her obese and surly-looking sibling – North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un – she seems a gentle soul, charming even, who couldn’t hurt a fly.
When her brother met President Trump for a historic summit in 2019, she was seen shyly peering out from behind a wall. Observers thought it almost adorable.
And yet – according to a ground-breaking and revealing new book – those who judge Kim Yo-jong on appearances may be making a fatal mistake.
Believed to be 35, the youngest child of former North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il is actually a ruthless political operator (even by her brutal family’s standards) who some tip to succeed her brother and who their father regarded as the most able of his offspring.
Yo-jong may even be heading for an explosive power struggle with her niece – Jong-un’s daughter Ju-ae – who is thought to be just 10 but has already been publicly hailed as her father’s heir apparent.
But judging by what this new book reveals about Aunt Yo-jong with her ‘trademark Mona Lisa smirk’, it would be foolish to assume that little Ju-ae will one day be sitting on the throne of the Hermit Kingdom.
For Yo-jong, say North Korea experts, is ‘the brains behind the operation’ – and terrifying brains, at that.
According to US academic Sung-Yoon Lee, whose new book ‘The Sister’ provides the first detailed insight into Yo-jong, it’s not for nothing that some Pyongyang officials have nicknamed her ‘bloodthirsty demon’ and ‘the devil woman’.
The de facto second-in-command to her brother, Yo-jong can have even the most senior government officials executed on just a word.
In 2021, she was elevated to the nation’s most powerful body – the State Affairs Commission. And since then, Lee says, she has had ‘the ultimate power of the cruel dictator; the power to play God and decide who lives and who is killed’.
Doted on from childhood, Yo-jong was largely hidden from public view for decades. But in 2018, she sparked a media frenzy when she attended the Winter Olympics in South Korea as her country's official representative and was pictured sitting close to Vice President Mike Pence.
Journalists hailed a glamour, delicacy and charm so lacking in her dumpy brother and many wondered if North Korea could finally be veering away from its dreadful past.
Instead, predicts Lee, Yo-jong is her 39-year-old brother’s zealous and spittle-flecked chief propagandist and is potentially ‘fiercer and more ruthless’ than him.
And, given his health problems with suspected heart disease, diabetes and obesity – the regime as good as admitted he was nearly killed by Covid-19 – North Korea may need a new leader sooner than expected.
Of course, obtaining information about the ferociously secretive dictatorship is immensely difficult but in 2021 Yo-jong reportedly ‘ordered several executions of high-ranking government officials for merely “getting on her nerves”.’
Those she found ‘less disagreeable’ were simply banished – along with their entirely innocent families – to detention camps and gulags, ‘where a life of grueling forced labour, beatings, torture and starvation rations awaited’.
According to Lee, rumors of Yo-jong’s ‘impulse to purge and kill’ soon became so rife that top officials started holding their breath in her presence. If she approached them they would avert their gaze or stare at the floor.
Ignoring her is apparently far safer than trying to win her praise – for ‘just being recognized by her might in due course lead to a fall from favor and a brush with death’.
A computer science graduate, Yo-jong doesn’t reserve her bloodthirsty impulses just for cowering officials. On the few occasions she’s been allowed to show her teeth on the international stage, she’s left little doubt that her finger on Pyongyang’s nuclear button would be every bit as unsettling as her saber-rattling brother’s.
In April last year, the First Sister dropped the sweetness act and warned South Korea that if its military ‘violated even an inch of our territory, our nuclear combat force will have to inevitably carry out its duty… and a dreadful attack will be launched’.
The South Korean army, she added, ‘will have to face a miserable fate little short of total destruction’.
As the head of propaganda, she has also demonstrated a knack for concocting particularly vile blasts against her nation’s enemies.
When, 2014, South Korea elected their first female leader, Pyongyang state media carried quotes calling her a ‘wicked sycophant’, ‘dirty old prostitute’ and ‘capricious whore’.
President Obama was outrageously branded a ‘wicked black monkey’, and a gay High Court justice in Australia was labelled a ‘disgusting old lecher with a 40-odd-year-long career of homosexuality’.
All of the comments were either written or signed off by Yo-jong.
Certainly, she’s come a long way since 2011 when her brother succeeded their father. At the time, few people outside Pyongyang even knew her name.
North Korea is also a staunchly patriarchal society. And one in which, for all its socialist pretensions, women generally look after the family at home while the men handle the politics.
Nonetheless Yo-jong’s own parents were said to be the first to recognise she was special. Even if they felt they couldn’t acknowledge it in public – her father instead elevating her underwhelming, basketball-obsessed brother.
Kim Jong-il had seven children by four women, either wives or concubines, but he reserved his chief affection for a dancer named Ko Yong-hui who bore him both Jong-un and Yo-jong.
Yo-jong’s own parents were said to be the first to recognise she was special. Even if they felt they couldn’t acknowledge it in public. (Pictured: Female North Korean soldiers march in parade).
They and elder brother Kim Jong-chul lived in the ruling family’s gated compound, given every luxury including the best food and toys money could buy, while their countrymen and women languished in poverty.
Up to the early 2000s, Jong-chul was all but set to succeed their father – until it was announced in 2009 that he wasn’t.
According to the family’s sushi chef, his father suddenly decided Jong-chul was ‘no good because he is like a little girl’.
And while Jong-chul reportedly now lives a quiet life in Pyongyang, appearing at occasional Eric Clapton concerts as far afield as Singapore and London, the actual ‘little girl’ in the family was clearly made of sterner stuff.
As a child, she was addressed by her proud parents as ‘sweet princess’ despite having a reputation for being strong-willed and stubborn.
Interestingly, the couple referred to their sons as ‘Big Brother’ (Jong-chul) and ‘Little Brother’ (Jong-un), in other words from the perspective of their sister.
Soon after she was born in 1987, she became the ‘axis of the royal family’, always sitting next to her father at meals while her brothers sat further down the table.
By the age of eight she was sufficiently sure of herself to fire her personal aide. Aged nine, she physically dragged her older brother – who was 16 – out of a women-only theatre on their family estate after he sneaked in.
She and her brothers were sent to be schooled in Switzerland, using pseudonyms and pretending to be the children of North Korean diplomats.
Her father was a psychopath who had his own half-brother Hyon murdered in 2007 to protect his children’s succession right. In the 1980s he attempted to assassinate the South Korean president and blew up a passenger plane in mid-air as one of many terrorist acts.
Lee says Jong-un and Yo-jong have clearly both inherited his murderous instincts. Indeed, Jong-un is suspected of having his own half-brother, Kim Jong-nam, assassinated in Kuala Lumpur airport with nerve agent in 2017.
Quite what his sister would be capable of is yet to be seen. But in the meantime she remains an increasingly powerful and vindictive presence in the background.
Even aged 21, when she was spotted trailing her father to an important meeting with Bill Clinton, it is thought she was already playing a key role in government.
And, unlike her Supreme Leader brother, she can speak English – a notable advantage when it comes to global politics.
When, during a meeting with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in 2018, the US delegation cracked a joke, she laughed while Kim Jong-un stared blankly ahead, clearly not understanding.
This may be one of the reasons as to why Jong-un clearly depends on his sister and keeps her close.
During the funeral eulogy for Kim Jong-il in 2011, his daughter – evidently overcome with emotion – suddenly left the official line-up.
For anyone else, such an outrageous break with protocol at a sacred ceremony would have been considered even worse than ‘half-hearted clapping’ and punishable by death.
But, from the earliest days of her brother’s rule, Yo-jong has been ‘untouchable’, says Lee.
Not that ordinary North Koreans would have known: state media never mentioned her once until March 2014 and that was only to say she’d cast a vote for her brother in an ‘election’.
She was mentioned twice more that month when she accompanied Jong-un to concerts. On both occasions, her name came last in the list of more than a dozen attendees and with no reference to her ‘blue blood’.
All considered then, it’s hardly surprising that her private life remains a mystery.
In 2018, during the trip to South Korea for the Winter Olympics, she appeared on one occasion without a coat and seemed to have a slight bulge around her abdomen.
Intelligence analysts speculated that she might be pregnant and South Korean media claimed she confirmed as much to Olympics officials. As to the likely father, she reportedly married Choe Song, a government official’s son, in 2014. It’s also claimed she had a child in 2015.
According to Lee, Yo-jong and her brother have devised a ‘good cop, bad cop’ strategy on the world stage whereby she employs her femininity and deceptive charm to offset Jong-un’s surly aggression.
But while it might publicly appear that she’s in a subservient role – standing happily aside and handing her brother a pen for him to sign the historic joint statement with President Trump in Singapore in 2018, for example – once again, appearances can be deceptive.
In 2019, Jong-un took a long train ride to Vietnam for a second meeting with Trump. He and his sister were caught on camera at a rest-stop during the journey, standing by themselves as he had a smoke and she held up a crystal ashtray for him with both hands.
Some commentators said it smacked of her subservience but in fact, says Lee, she was making sure he left no cigarette butts bearing traces of his DNA for foreign intelligence services to examine.
‘No one else, aside from his wife, has such intimate access to the Supreme Leader,’ says Lee.
But will she be loyal forever?
Just as her butter-wouldn’t-melt appearance hides a woman who kills on command and revels in vile abuse, perhaps nothing about Kim Yo-jong can be taken for granted.
USA: 2022-23 CONCACAF Nations League Winners
There is little question as to which national team is the best men’s side in Concacaf.
The U.S. national left little doubt on Sunday night, registering a 2-0 triumph over Canada in the Concacaf Nations League final before a half-filled Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.
Chris Richards and Flo Balogun scored their first international goals as Gio Reyna set up both goals as the USA finished a perfect four days after dispatching Mexico quite handily in the semifinals on Thursday night, 3-0.
Reyna, however, never had an opportunity to add to his total in the second half as he was forced out of the match halftime after suffering an apparent right ankle injury. Luca de la Torre replaced him.
There also other heroes for the U.S., which defending the first CNL crown it earned in 2021.
Goalkeeper Matt Turner turned away four shots when Canada penetrated the Americans backline. Left back Antonee Robinson was outstanding as was Richards and Walker Zimmerman, who replaced an injured Miles Robinson at center back.
Right Joe Scally, in place of the suspended Sergino Dest (red card), played very well in the back on both sides of the ball. Scally had a strong attacking presence on the flank, picking his spots. After suffering an apparent injury while covering Alphonso Davies, the Lake Grove, N.Y. native was replaced by Austin Trusty in the 79th minute.
The USA also played without midfielder Weston McKennie, who also was red carded in the Mexico win.
It did seem the Americans missed McKennie or Dest, they were so dominant on Sunday night.
The USA started its youngest Starting XI in a final with an average age of 23 years and 314 days old. The Americans’ lineup used three 20-year-old players – Yunus Musah, Reyna and Scally – for the first time to start a final.
The Americans put together another full match, using their speed and well-timed passes to keep the Canadians off balance for a good portion of the night.
In contrast to the win over Mexico, Christian Pulisic did not make much of an impression in the opening half. But Reyna stepped up and assisted on both goals as the Americans grabbed a 2-0 lead.
They kept the pressure on Canada for a good portion of the opening half, winning several corner and free kicks, within striking distance.
The USMNT cashed in in the 12th minute when Richards headed home in a perfect corner kick from Reyna in traffic from yards for a 1-0 lead.
Reyna demonstrated he could do some playmaking from the run of play in the 34th minute as he threaded the needle to an onrushing Balogun, who beat goalkeeper Milan Borjan from eight yards on the right side for his debut goal in his second international appearance.
The Canadians came out pushing forward in the second half, but the U.S. regained possession and put pressure in its attempt to put the game away early on. Borjan saved a pair of Antonee Robinson shots in the 56th minute, parrying the first off of the crossbar for a corner kick, to keep the score at 2-0.
Turner had his moments as well. He denied Cyle Larin in the ninth minute and saved attempts by Stephen Eustaquio and Richie Laryea in the 37th and 39th minutes, respectively. Two minutes into the second half, the Arsenal keeper stopped Ismael Kone’s try.
With the USA winning a major confederation title, head coach B.J. Callaghan and his staff will set their sights on another one later this week. That’s when the USMNT starts its run in the Concacaf Gold Cup. There will be another American squad wearing the red, white and blue as it will face Jamaica in its group opener in Chicago on Saturday, June 24.
Spain: 2022-23 UEFA Nations League Winners
Match in brief: Dogged Croatia finally fall on penalties
The early stages were an exercise for Spain in tempering the exuberance of the Croatia players and their horde of followers inside the stadium. They did just that and nearly made the breakthrough twice in the opening 15 minutes, first when Dominik Livaković spilled Fabián Ruiz's cross-cum-shot against the post and then when Gavi dragged an attempt just wide from the edge of the area.
Keeping this Vatreni outfit quelled has been a problem for many sides in recent years, though, and back they came, Aymeric Laporte and Robin Le Normand forced into last-ditch blocks before Unai Simón sprawled across his goal to keep out Ivan Perišić's header – spirits and volume raised once more.
Zlatko Dalić had shown faith in centre-backs Martin Erlić and Josip Šutalo – just 12 caps between them – and La Roja struggled to create clear-cut chances against the pair, Marco Asensio's flashing header over the bar a rare opportunity early in the second half. Mario Pašalić went closer when heading into the side netting, while Rodri's rasping shot from distance whistled past the target as the contest remained goalless heading into the final quarter of normal time.
Luis de la Fuente turned to the pace and trickery of Ansu Fati, and lucky charm Joselu, but Spain struggled to stamp their authority on the relentless Vatreni, whose industry and threat was epitomised by 34-year-old left-back Ivan Perišić continuing to maraud down the left, then clearing off the line to deny Fati the breakthrough. Asensio swept wide as the clock struck 90 minutes, Spain ending normal time in the ascendancy.
Croatia and extra time have been inseparable friends in recent years, their only blemish coming in their UEFA EURO 2020 round of 16 defeat by Spain, and they looked the more likely to prise an opening even if few were forthcoming. Nacho blocked brilliantly from Lovro Majer while deflections denied Asensio and Rodri as penalties could not be averted.
Six successful spot kicks followed before Unai Simón's outstretched boot repelled Majer's effort, only for Laporte to rattle the bar at match point. Unai Simón kept out Petković next up, paving the way for Dani Carvajal to coolly seal the silverware for La Roja.
Player of the Match: Marcelo Brožović (Croatia)
"His relentless effort both in and out of possession. Connecting attack from back line to the front and working extremely hard defensively covering almost the whole pitch."
UEFA Technical Observer Panel
Elvir Islamović, Croatia reporter
It was a real chess game between the two big teams. Croatia were battling really well, they were controlling the match with a lot of discipline, but eventually they lost on penalties against Spain. This generation missed a big chance to win the first trophy for their country, but they don't have a single reason to be unhappy. This is still a winning team and the best group of players in Croatia's history. After two World Cup medals, they return home with silver in the Nations League and that is something only the best teams can do.
Graham Hunter, Spain reporter
The 'old' Spain, winners of two EUROs and a World Cup in their 'golden age' didn't play like this. They commanded, they controlled. Then they struck. Here, again, La Roja suffered from their modern ailment. No killer touch. Stubborn blue-collar work ethic replaced blue-riband brilliance. Eventually the match was in their grasp. It looked like they were going to keep spurning chances, that they were going to fluff their lines but, in the end, two superb moments from their goalkeeper were enough.
Luis de la Fuente, Spain coach: "We have to bear in mind the 16 best teams in Europe were involved and the best four were in the semi-finals. Getting to the final is a big achievement. We deserve credit. We were up against a top team who are experienced and finished third at the World Cup, so it's a big deal."
Dani Carvajal, Spain defender: "It wasn't me being chosen [to take a penalty] – I put my hand up. I've only ever taken one in my career, in the Spanish Super Cup, but I wanted to take this one. When the game ended, I went to the manager. They were doing a five-player shortlist and I told them that if any of the players were hesitant or weren't confident enough, I would like to take one and, if not, I would take the sixth. In the end, the game gave me the opportunity I wanted."
Rodri, Spain midfielder: "We showed such mental strength as a team. We were really good in the extra time. Above all in the shoot-out. When you you get here this is about winning. We were so competitive. Against a team which eliminated Brazil from the World Cup, which seems to always get to finals. A great team and we managed to compete and then beat them."
Zlatko Dalić, Croatia coach: "First, I congratulate Spain and our players on a great game. Thank you to the fans, as we had great support. We lost – too bad – but we have to be proud. We made it to the final but we didn't win. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. The stakes were high, the game was tough and the opponent was good. We ran again for 120 minutes. We were quality, we competed with them. I have nothing to regret."
Lovro Majer, Croatia midfielder: "We are sad – especially me, because I didn't convert my penalty – but that's football. We gave everything we could but lost on penalties. We did well in the competition."
Key stats
Spain played in the Nations League final for the second successive edition, becoming the first nation to play in the decider on more than one occasion.
La Roja failed to score for only the second time in 20 Nations League matches; for Croatia it was just the second time in 16 games.
Spain have been successful in five of their last seven deciders at current major international final tournaments (EURO, Nations League and World Cup).
La Roja become the second team, after France, to win the EURO, World Cup and Nations League.
At the last two World Cup final tournaments, UEFA EURO 2020 and now here, Croatia have played extra time on eight occasions; they have won six – four on penalties – but lost the other two to Spain.
Line-ups
Croatia: Livaković; Juranović (Stanišić 112), Šutalo, Erlić, Perišić; Modrić, Brozović, Kovačić; Pašalić (Petković 61), Kramarić (Majer 90+1), Ivanušec (Vlašić 78)
Spain: Unai Simón; Jesús Navas (Carvajal 97), Le Normand (Nacho 78), Laporte, Jordi Alba; Rodri, Fabián Ruiz (Merino 78); Asensio, Gavi (Olmo 87), Pino (Fati 66); Morata (Joselu 66)
The teams switch attentions back to qualifying for UEFA EURO 2024 in September, when Croatia face Latvia and Armenia, while Spain take on Georgia and Cyprus.
The next edition of the UEFA Nations League, featuring quarter-finals and promotion/relegation play-offs, begins in September 2024, with the finals the following June.
Vegas Golden Knights: 2022-23 Stanley Cup Champions
LAS VEGAS -- Vegas, baby, Vegas.
The Vegas Golden Knights won the Stanley Cup for the first time in their six seasons, defeating the Florida Panthers 9-3 in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final at T-Mobile Arena on Tuesday.
Mark Stone scored a hat trick, Jack Eichel and Shea Theodore each had three assists, and Reilly Smith had a goal and an assist for Vegas. Adin Hill made 31 saves.
The Golden Knights had seven goal-scorers and 15 players with at least one point.
Sam Reinhart and Sam Bennett each had a goal and an assist, and Sergei Bobrovsky made 22 saves for the Panthers.
Florida played without forward Matthew Tkachuk, its leading scorer in the Stanley Cup Playoffs (24 points; 11 goals, 13 assists), who sustained an injury in Game 3 but played through it in Game 4. The Panthers did not disclose the nature of Tkachuk's injury before Game 5, but it is believed to be to his upper body.
Stone got the Golden Knights started by making it 1-0 with a short-handed goal off a 2-on-1 at 11:52 of the first period. He kept the puck on the rush and waited out Bobrovsky before shooting high to the glove side from in close.
Hill gave the Golden Knights a chance to score first with a left-pad save on Anton Lundell, who was in alone on him, at 2:24, and a save on Aleksander Barkov with his left skate 18 seconds before Stone's goal.
Nicolas Hague gave Vegas a 2-0 lead at 13:41. He came in from the blue line, got to a loose puck in front of Bobrovsky and put it in.
Jonathan Marchessault had an assist on Hague's goal to extend his Golden Knights playoff-record point streak to 10 games (15 points; eight goals, seven assists). He finished as the leading scorer in the playoffs with 25 points (13 goals, 12 assists) in 22 games.
Aaron Ekblad cut it to 2-1 at 2:15 of the second period with a shot through traffic from the right point that beat Hill over his left shoulder.
The Golden Knights scored four goals in the last 9:32 of the second period to put the game out of reach.
Alec Martinez scored from the right face-off circle off a drop pass from Eichel to make it 3-1 at 10:28.
Smith scored 1:45 later to make it 4-1 at 12:13, beating Bobrovsky from the right side after William Karlsson set him up with a no-look, backhanded, between-the-legs pass in the slot.
Stone's second of the game made it 5-1 at 17:15. Chandler Stephenson brought the puck into the zone on the right side and dropped it to Brett Howden, who moved it across to Stone in the left circle. His shot got through Bobrovsky.
Michael Amadio made it 6-1 at 19:58 by scoring from the slot on his own rebound.
Ivan Barbashev extended the lead to 7-1 at 8:22 of the third period. Reinhart cut it to 7-2 25 seconds later at 8:47, and Bennett made it 7-3 at 11:39 with a shot off Alex Pietrangelo's stick.
Stone finished his hat trick with an unassisted, length-of-the-ice empty-net goal to make it 8-3 at 14:06.
Nicolas Roy capped it at 18:58 for the 9-3 final.
Denver Nuggets: 2022-23 NBA Champions
DENVER (AP) Confetti flying in Denver. The Nuggets sharing hugs while passing around the NBA championship trophy.
Those scenes that, for almost a half-century, seemed impossible, then more recently started feeling inevitable, finally turned into reality Monday night.
The Nuggets outlasted the Miami Heat 94-89 in an ugly, frantic Game 5 that did nothing to derail Nikola Jokic, who bailed out his teammates with 28 points and 16 rebounds on a night when nothing else seemed to work.
Jokic became the first player in history to lead the league in points (600), rebounds (269) and assists (190) in a single postseason. Not surprisingly, he won the Bill Russell trophy as the NBA Finals MVP - an award that certainly has more meaning to him than the two overall MVPs he won in 2021 and ’22 and the one that escaped him this year.
“We are not in it for ourselves, we are in it for the guy next to us,” Jokic said. “And that’s why this (means) even more.”
Denver's clincher was a gruesome grind.
Unable to shake the tenacious Heat or their own closing-night jitters, the Nuggets missed 20 of their first 22 3-pointers. They missed seven of their first 13 free throws. They overcame that to take a late seven-point lead, only to see Miami’s Jimmy Butler go off. He scored eight straight points to give the Heat a one-point lead with 2:45 left.
Butler made two free throws with 1:58 remaining to help Miami regain a one-point lead. Then, Bruce Brown got an offensive rebound and tip-in to give the Nuggets an edge they wouldn't give up.
Trailing by three with 15 seconds left, Butler jacked up a 3, but missed it. Brown and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope made two free throws each down the stretch to clinch the title for Denver.
Butler finished with 21 points.
“Those last three or four minutes felt like a scene out of a movie,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “Two teams in the center of the ring throwing haymaker after haymaker, and it’s not necessarily shot making. It’s the efforts.”
Grueling as it was, the aftermath was something the Nuggets and their fans could all agree was beautiful. There were fireworks exploding outside Ball Arena at the final buzzer. Denver is the home of the Larry O’Brien Trophy for the first time in the franchise’s 47 years in the league.
“The fans in this town are unbelievable,” said team owner Stan Kroenke, who also owns the Colorado Avalanche, the team that won its third Stanley Cup last year. “It means a lot to us to get this done.”
The Heat were, as Spoelstra promised, a gritty, tenacious bunch. But their shooting wasn’t great, either. Miami shot 34% from the floor and 25% from 3. Until Butler went off, he was 2 for 13 for eight points. Bam Adebayo finished with 20 points.
The Heat, who survived a loss in the play-in tournament and became only the second No. 8 seed to make the finals, insisted they weren’t into consolation prizes.
They played like they expected to win, and for a while during this game, which was settled as much by players diving onto the floor as sweet-looking jump shots, it looked like they would.
The Nuggets, who came in shooting 37.6% from 3 for the series, shot 18% in this one. They committed 14 turnovers.
The tone was set with 2:51 left in the first quarter, when Jokic got his second foul and joined Aaron Gordon on the bench. Jeff Green and Jamal Murray, who finished with 14 points and eight assists on an off night, joined them there, too.
It made the Nuggets tentative on both sides of the court for the rest of the half. Somehow, after shooting 6.7% from 3 - the worst first half in the history of the finals (10-shot minimum) they only trailed by seven.
True to the Nuggets' personality, they kept pressing, came at their opponent in waves and figured out how to win a game that went against their type. Their beautiful game turned into a slugfest, but they figured it out nonetheless.
“What I was most proud about is, throughout the game, if your offense is not working and your shots are not falling, you have to dig in on the defensive end,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said.
It felt almost perfect that an unheralded and once-chubby second-round draft pick from Serbia would be the one to lift Denver to the top of a league that, for decades, has been dominated by superstars, first-round draft picks and players who lead the world in sneaker and jersey sales.
Over their near five-decade stay in the league, the Nuggets have been the epitome of a lovable NBA backbencher – at times entertaining, adorned by rainbows on their uniforms and headlined by colorful characters on the floor and bench. But never quite good enough to break through against the biggest stars and better teams to the east, west and south of them.
Before this season, there were only two teams founded before 1980 – the Nuggets and Clippers – that had never been to an NBA Finals. The Nuggets took their name off that list, then joined San Antonio as the second original ABA team to capture the NBA’s biggest prize. The other two ABAers, the Pacers and Nets, have been to the finals but lost.
It was the Joker’s blossoming into a do-everything force that made the Nuggets a team to watch. Not everybody did. A shift to winning couldn’t change Denver’s location on the map – in a weird time zone in flyover territory – and it didn’t shift everyone’s view of the Nuggets.
Even in Denver.
There’s little doubt that this has always been a Broncos-first sort of town. No single Denver victory will outshine the day in 1998 when John Elway broke through and that team’s owner, Pat Bowlen, held the Lombardi Trophy high and declared: “This one’s for John!”
But this one? It won't take a back seat to much. It’s for every Dan (Issel), David (Thompson), Doug (Moe) or Dikembe (Mutombo) who ever came up short or got passed over for a newer, shinier model with more glitter and more stars.
For the first time in 47 seasons, nobody in the NBA shines brighter than the Nuggets.
“You live vicariously through these guys,” said Denver great LaPhonso Ellis, as he pointed to the big scoreboard announcing the Nuggets as champions. “And to see that there, ‘2023 NBA Champions’ here in Denver, that's so cool, and I'm honored to be a part of it."
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