MINNEAPOLIS – Getting run out of the gym without so much as a whimper of protest might not have been the sad end of a glorious era for the Nuggets, but you can see it from here.
And it ain’t a pretty sight.
Those NBA championship rings earned in 2023 will shine forever. Denver, however, has lost that winning feeling.
And it’s gone, gone, gone.
There might be humiliation in getting blasted 113-96 Thursday by Minnesota in a playoff game, if the Nuggets had looked as if they actually gave a damn.
Their usual porous defense was outdone only by perhaps the worst offensive performance since Nikola Jokic’s ascension to being recognized as the best basketball player in the world.
“We’ve got to fight more … Be ready from the jump,” said Denver guard Jamal Murray, who believed teammates were disquieted by the roar of the Target Center crowd and recklessly sped up when pushed by the Timberwolves.
Game 3 of this best-of-seven series was over before the final horn of the first quarter, when the Nuggets couldn’t throw a basketball in the headwaters of the Mississippi River. They missed 18 of 21 field-goal attempts in the opening period.
Instead of returning the Nuggets to the court after that revolting display, maybe coach David Adelman should’ve called it a night and sent everybody out for pizza and beer.
The best one-two scoring punch in the league has lost its knockout thump against Minnesota. Jokic is shooting 40% from the field, while Murray’s marksmanship is even shakier, at 36%.
These Nuggets look small against Rudy Gobert and the athletic Timberwolves without forward Aaron Gordon, who was a late scratch with a calf injury.
Prior to the game, the air of resignation in Adelman’s voice stank like halitosis with almost every word the coach uttered.
“It’s a downer,” he said.
Then, David Downer added: “You can’t plan for this stuff.”
Well, maybe the coach should check in with Jokic more often. Joker said he didn’t think Gordon would be available before the team plane left Colorado for Minnesota.
The Nuggets have a chronic A.G. problem.
As a teammate, Gordon not only is a beautiful soul, but supplies the beating heart of this team.
But his legs can no longer be trusted. His tightly wound legs are constantly snapping a spring.
At age 30, however, Gordon is aging in dog years. And that’s not good, because he can hit the corner 3, bring the ball up the floor and be a defensive force against guards and centers alike.
Gordon can mask the Nuggets’ worst flaws, but not when he’s in street clothes.
During the past two seasons, he has missed 78 games in the regular season and playoffs. A.G. has been sidelined 43% of the time. As much as we and teammates love him, that lack of dependability is a very poor return on the investment of a $133 million contract extension.
This team has felt cursed and been headed the wrong way ever since that fateful summer day in 2025 when, out of nowhere, KSE vice chairman Josh Kroenke said: “The wrong person gets injured, and very quickly you’re into a scenario that I never want to have to contemplate, and that’s trading No. 15.”
Gordon is the wrong person to get hurt for these Nuggets.
But there’s no way Denver would ever trade Jokic. Right?
Game 4 feels like do or die. For this Denver season. And the Nuggets as we’ve come to love them.
Yes, this group has stared into the darkness of a playoff abyss before and lived to play another day. A year ago, the Nuggets got blown out by 24 points by the Clippers during a wretched Game 3 in Los Angeles, but fought back to win the series.
Who was the hero of Game 4 with a dunk at the buzzer that rattled the Clippers to the core?
Gordon.
“Sometimes you have to dumb things down to get better,” Adelman said.
So let’s keep it simple, knuckleheads.
A first-round playoff exit would scream: Can this franchise afford to waste another year of Jokic’s MVP prime?
A little over 12 months ago, the Nuggets fired Michael Malone, the only coach in franchise history to win the league championship.
They traded Michael Porter Jr. last summer in the mistaken belief that could fix both the shaky defense and a weak bench.
Gordon is hurt so often it can no longer be used as an excuse, but a symptom of a team that’s too fragile for the long grind of the NBA season.
On a dreary night in Minneapolis, all the tired, old Nuggets excuses got run out of the gym.