DENVER — There’s crying in basketball.
Denver Nuggets head coach Michael Malone tried to hold back the tears as he spoke about winning the NBA Finals after Thursday’s championship parade.
“What was going through your mind?” 9NEWS sports reporter Jacob Tobey asked.
Choked up, Malone hesitated.
“Oh, man. This is surreal,” he said. “And to all the fans who have been in Denver 47 years waiting for this moment, we made it. My eight years – we’ve been building for this step by step, day by day, and we did it.”
The Nuggets beat the Miami Heat in Game 5 this week, giving Denver its first NBA title in franchise history.
At the parade celebrating the win, Malone caught fans' shoes – even smelled one – that were thrown to him for an autograph. He also got out of the firetruck he was in to walk the parade route and spray fans with champagne.
“I dreamed about this. I really did. I dreamed about this. And to be here in this moment is something that I’ll never, ever forget,” Malone told 9NEWS.
Malone said more than once that while this is Denver’s first NBA championship, it won’t be the last.
“I’ve got a crazy idea," said Malone, who was wearing a shirt that read “Put this in your pipe and smoke it” with a picture of the NBA trophy under it. "Let’s do this again. I want to be on another float. I want to be at another parade and do this thing again.”
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
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