Denver Nuggets' memory lane: This one is for ...

This one is for …

• Kamala Quintana, whose season-ticket-holding mother dragged her to Nuggets games in the early 1980s with her algebra homework in tow. (She still got an A.) “My mother had a disability, so we parked in the lot with ‘the boys,’ as she called the players,” Quintana said. “David Thompson was parked next to us one night and she told him, ‘David, you had a rough game tonight.’ I was mortified, but he just smiled and said, ‘I’ll try to do better for you tomorrow, Miss Ann.’”

• The woman seated next to me at Game 5, who went to MarMac High School in Monona, Iowa, with former Nuggets star Raef LaFrentz.

• My friend Rebecca Joseph, whose first date with her husband was watching the Nuggets play the Lakers in a 2012 playoff game at a bar. Daniel Langhoff died of cancer in 2017, 11 days after the birth of their second daughter. He was 42. "I like to think he’s still cheering with us," she said.

• Woody Paige, who has covered the team longer than any other journalist.

• Chopper Travaglini, who was called “the league’s most colorful healer of million-dollar athletes” from 1976-90.

• General manager Calvin Booth. And Calvin Natt. And Mack Calvin. All the Calvins.

• Rocky and son.

• The red, white and blue ball and all things American Basketball Association, which brought the boring old NBA out of its doldrums with the 1976 merger. 

• Bob King, who orchestrated that merger.

• Red Baron, nickname for the Rockets’ – and the league’s – first team pilot.

• Bob Bass, Denver’s first ABA coach.

• Carl Scheer, who led basketball operations and orchestrated the ownership change and the trade that brought David Thompson to Denver. He’s often credited with helping to save basketball for the city. 

• Paula Hanson, the Nuggets’ pioneering assistant general manager (hired by Scheer), who put together the 1976 all-star weekend that included the first slam-dunk contest and a concert featuring Charlie Rich and Glen Campbell.

• Vice President of Basketball Administration Lisa Johnson, the team’s longest-tenured employee, who has spent almost 40 years with the organization.

• Hometown hero Byron Beck, the first player ever signed by the franchise. He was known for a deadly sweeping hook shot that he learned from his mother.

• Coach Doug Moe, who announced his firing from the Nuggets at a 1990 press conference by sharing a public champagne toast with his wife, Jane.

• Sharpshooter Jeff Congdon, who took an in-bounds pass on Jan. 18, 1970, and cashed in a 72-foot, buzzer-beating 3-pointer at the end of the first quarter against Carolina. The next day, Rocky Mountain News photographer John Gordon asked Congdon to re-create the shot for a photo, and, legend has it, he made it again. Two stickers shaped like feet were placed on the Auditorium Arena to honor the feat. Further investigation determined that the shot was actually from more like 82 feet. And by the way, the historic shot came on an in-bounds play following a basket by none other than Doug Moe of the Cougars.

• Warren Jabali’s shot – and his hair.

• John McClendon, who only coached the Rockets to a 9-19 record, but was reportedly the first Black coach of a major U.S. sports team.

• Joe Belmont, McClendon’s successor, who led the team on a still-standing record 15-game winning streak.

• Larry Jones, who in the 1968-69 season reportedly scored 30 or more points in 23 straight games.

• Larry Brown’s bell-bottomed pants and his “Modfather” fashion sense.

• Lonnie Wright, who played two professional sports at the same time. The Colorado State University grad was also a defensive back for the Denver Broncos.

• All the Rockets players who were paid so little in those early days, they had real-world off-season jobs, including one who was a school custodian.

• Michael Malone’s scratchy throat.  

• Five-time all-star Ralph Simpson and his daughter, India.Arie Simpson, who says her father “showed me I really could be anything.”

• Julius Keye, who made a 3-pointer against the Utah Stars and got hacked, but the call so infuriated Utah coach Ladell Anderson, he drew a technical. Keye’s three free throws made it a six-point play.

• Dikembe Mutombo’s smiling face on the floor.

• Every ESPN journalist whose begrudging respect for the Nuggets in the end seemed more painful to extract than an infected tooth. 

• Alex English’s silky-smooth jump shot.

• Marvin Webster, whose missed free throw in 1976 deprived the Nuggets of, until this year, their best chance to advance to the NBA Finals.

• Dan Issel, who agreed to sit down for an interview with me for my school paper when I was a junior in high school. 

• Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, who deserved better.

• Bob Martin and Al Albert, who called play-by-play for KOA Radio in the early days.

• Spencer Haywood, whose rookie season was the most spectacular in team history.

• Reese's Coffee Shop, across the street from the old Auditorium Arena.

• Colorado Public Radio reporter Vic Vela, who attended every home game of this year's historic playoff run, and whose unapologetic love for the team and joy for its success bled into every word of his coverage.

• Justin George, whose theme song "Go With the Nuggets" dominated home games and local airwaves in 1976. The lyrics went like this:

Runnin' the break we're as fast as the wind.

We force the play from end to end.

We've got fast moves flashin', jump shots a-flyin'.

'Cause we're the Denver Nuggets friend.

Ooooh - We're gonna go with the Nuggets.

Hit that shot and score with the Nuggets tonight!

Clearin' the boards or drivin' the lane.

Our teamwork is a beautiful sight.

We got a defense that hustles, an offense with muscle.

And we're gunnin' for the win tonight.

Ooooh - We're gonna go with the Nuggets.

Hit that shot and score with the Nuggets tonight!

Ooooh - Scorin' with the Nuggets tonight!

(Go Denver Nuggets, NBA Nuggets.)

Ooooh - Jumpin' with the Nuggets tonight!

(Go Denver Nuggets, best in the N-B-A!)

• The fans. All of them. Old and new. Near and far. Like Jake Morris of Melbourne, who flew to Denver to cheer on the Nuggets.

• The glory days, which are now the old days.

• And finally, this one is for my father, Ralph Moore, the first beat writer dedicated to covering the Nuggets for The Denver Post. “He was a good man and among the last real newspapermen,” then-Rocky Mountain News rival Woody Paige wrote of Ralph when he died in 1997. When we spoke before this season, Ralph said: "‘The Nuggets used to be fun. I wish it could be like that again.'”

Rest assured, Dad. They are.