Nick Nurse, who led the Toronto Raptors to the NBA title in 2019, was selected by Philadelphia to take over for Doc Rivers. Nell Redmond/Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia 76ers hired coach Nick Nurse on Monday, following his exit from Toronto Raptors, a person with direct knowledge of the decision told The Associated Press.

The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity Monday because the team had not announced the move.

Nurse led the Raptors to the 2019 NBA championship after they beat the 76ers in the Eastern Conference semifinals.

Nurse will replace Doc Rivers, who was fired after he led the 76ers to their second straight 50-win season behind NBA MVP Joel Embiid but again failed to lead them to the Eastern Conference Finals.

The 76ers held a 3-2 semifinals series lead against Boston before dropping Game 6 at home and were crushed in Game 7 on the road.

Nurse went 227-163 in his five seasons as coach in Toronto, where his .582 winning percentage ranks as the best of any coach in Raptors history. He also spent five years as an assistant to former Raptors coach Dwane Casey before taking over the top job.

Nurse played at Northern Iowa, then started his coaching career there as an assistant. He wound up becoming a head coach at Grand View University when he was just 23. He coached in Belgium and Britain – winning a pair of British Basketball League titles as a coach in Birmingham in 1996 and London in 2000 – then got a couple of titles in what is now called the G League.

The second G League crown got Nurse noticed. He guided Rio Grande Valley to a title in 2013, and that’s when the Raptors called and wanted to talk to him about offense. They ended up hiring him as an assistant, and he’d been with Toronto ever since.

Nuggets center Nikola Jokic, center, is presented with the series MVP trophy Denver beat the Lakers in the Western Conference Finals. Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press

NUGGETS: Denver doesn’t brawl with other teams or bicker among themselves. It’s been almost a decade since they fired a coach. Their most spectacular highlights often involve sublime skip passes across the court – or a backward, half-court shot from their mascot, Rocky, during a break in the action.

Some might call them downright boring. The Nuggets call it beautiful. Their no-drama way of doing business, both on and off the court, doesn’t grab tons of headlines. But it has set the franchise up for success and brought it to its first NBA Finals in 47 years in the league.

The team that cemented itself into first place in the Western Conference on Dec. 20, then cashed in by making it to the final, is the virtual opposite of those it has mowed down in both the regular and postseasons. Those teams are studded with stars, or in the headlines after big trades, or featuring front-line players who are semi-regulars on the police blotter, or filled with injuries and other drama up and down the roster and on the bench.

Even the team they’ll face in the finals, whether it be the Celtics or Heat, is wrapped in a drama-soaked and potentially history-making series. Less than a week ago, Boston Coach Joe Mazzulla – who got the job this season after his predecessor was found to have had an improper relationship with a staffer – was on the hot seat, his team down 3-0 and his ability to coax the best out of a talented roster under question. After a buzzer-beating tip-in to tie the series 3-3, that all changed.

The Nuggets: They swept the Lakers and have been waiting and practicing for a week.

“If you’re going to win at a high level, you can’t have distractions,” seventh-year coach Michael Malone said during one of his team’s many off days between the conference final and the NBA Finals, which start Thursday. “You have to have guys that get along – on the court, off the court – and come together and share in a common goal.”

Only minutes after the Nuggets dispatched the Lakers last Monday, all the talk after the game was about LeBron James. In this instance it was whether the NBA’s all-time leading scorer would be back for another season (he turns 39 this year) and how that decision would impact one of the league’s glamour teams going forward.

James, though, made sure to shine some of the spotlight on the Nuggets.

“Me and A.D. (Anthony Davis) were talking in the locker room,” James said. “We came to the consensus, this is, if not one of the best teams, probably the best team, we’ve played since we’ve been together for all four years. Just well orchestrated, well put together. They have scoring. They have shooting. They have play-making. They (have) smarts. They have depth.”

They also have a two-time MVP in Nikola Jokic who is part of a roster that seems, for now at least, immune from the wheelings and dealings that capture headlines and can make or break franchises.

Last offseason, Jokic signed a supermax contract that locks him up through 2028. Jamal Murray is signed through 2025. Michael Porter Jr., whose signing of a max contract in 2021 raised some eyebrows considering his history with injuries, is inked with guaranteed money through at least 2026.

“What I also love about this franchise is that when guys don’t fit into the culture, they’re not here anymore,” Malone said. “We have guys that understand that being selfless is a huge part of being a Denver Nugget and guys who continue to buy into that, whether they’re playing or not playing.”

Last season, in a push to find a winning combination while Murray languished with a knee injury, they brought in everyone from DeMarcus Cousins to Bones Hyland to Austin Rivers. That group got dispatched by the Warriors in the first round. Drama came mostly in the debate about whether Murray should have hurried back from his torn ACL in time for the playoffs.

He didn’t, and that decision looks brilliant today.