The Denver Nuggets season came to an end on Sunday night, with another clear loss to the Phoenix Suns, who prevailed 125-118 in the match played at the Ball Arena and thus closed the semifinal series of the Western Conference of the NBA. In this way, Facundo Campazzo’s debut campaign in the North American League was also ended, who said goodbye with 14 points, before joining the Argentine National Team for the Tokyo Olympics.
As in the entire series, the Suns dominated the game thanks to the contribution of Chris Paul and Devin Booker, who took the reins of the game despite the change in strategy of Michael Malone, who chose to send Campazzo and Austin Rivers to the substitute bench and open the game with Monte Morris and Will Barton as starters. The modification did not add much, as Paul finished the game with 37 points and 7 assists and Booker had 34 points and 11 rebounds.
The impotence of the Nuggets was exposed by the expulsion of the Serbian Nikola Jokic, excluded by a flagrant foul of degree 2 when he averaged the third quarter. Frustrated by the adverse score, the MVP of the season hit Cameron Payne, ending the season watching everything from the bench.
In this context, Campazzo’s performance was more than correct, with 14 points and one assist, with 4-7 triples and 1-3 doubles. Even with Jokic out, he led the Nuggets’ last comeback, when they approached six (107-101) with 5m30 remaining. However, Malone sat him down at that point and returned him to the field with 1m30 left, when Denver was already trailing 118-107.
Despite that, the Argentine completed a very good first season in the NBA, in which he earned the recognition of teammates, coaches and rivals.
In the conference final, the Suns will face the winner of the series that the Utah Jazz is beating 2-1 over the Los Angeles Clippers. In the East, the Milwaukee Bucks beat Brooklyn Nets 107-96 and tied the series 2-2. In the other key, the Philadelphia 76ers beat the Atlanta Hawks 2-1.