DENVER – Add a new line to the bio of Loyola University Maryland alumnus Michael Malone: World Champion.

The 1994 graduate of Loyola led the Denver Nuggets to the NBA Title on Monday night as the Western Conference side took the Finals series in five games over the Miami Heat.
 
Denver's title is its first in franchise history and came in the Nuggets' first-ever trip to the Finals.
 
Malone, who was a four-year letterwinner for the Greyhounds from 1989-93, played in 107 career games at Loyola, starting 39 as a point guard. He totaled 370 points, 279 assists and 79 steals in 18.5 minutes per game during his four seasons.
 
He started his coaching career on Charles Street in Baltimore as an assistant coach at Friends School in 1993-94, and he made the jump to the college level as an assistant at Oakland University the following year. Malone joined Pete Gillen's staff at Providence from 1995-98 and was a member of staffs at Virginia and Manhattan.
 
Malone made the jump to the NBA in 2001 when he joined the New York Knicks organization. He was an assistant for Cleveland, New Orleans and Golden State before landing his first head-coaching job in 2013 with the Sacramento Kings.
 
The Queens, New York, native landed in Denver starting with the 2015 and has been at the head of the bench ever since. He has a 406-337 regular season record in 10 seasons in the NBA, with Western Conference Semifinal appearances in 2019 and 2021 with a Western Conference Finals bid in between prior to this season's run.