The Denver Nuggets are one win away from making history. As Monday night's battle with the Miami Heat approaches, Nikola Jokic is fully confident his team will rise to the occasion of an NBA Finals close-out game.

“We're gonna be locked in and ready to go,” he told reporters on Sunday. “It's just gonna be a game that we need to win.”

The Nuggets take a commanding 3-1 lead over the Heat into Monday's Game 5 at Ball Arena. The only team to ever comeback from that deficit in the championship series is the 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers, who dethroned the 73-win Golden State Warriors behind a legendary performance from LeBron James.

Seven years later, the Heat seem supremely unlikely to make similar history against a Denver squad that's been quietly dominant throughout the postseason while vying for its first title in franchise history.

Jokic has led the Nuggets' charge, averaging 30.8 points, 13.5 rebounds and eight assists per game in the Finals on hyper-efficient shooting while forcefully answering looming questions about his defensive effectiveness at the game's highest levels. Jamal Murray has been right behind the two-time MVP, re-establishing himself as one of the league's most devastating postseason performers.

Denver's supporting cast has sorely out-played Miami's, too, making the sizable gap in production between Jokic and Murray and Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo seem even wider than the box score suggests.

The Nuggets are just one more victory away from glory, battening down the hatches after a disappointing letdown in Game 2. Expect more of the same from Jokic and company on Monday night as the Larry O'Brien Trophy awaits in the halls of Ball Arena.