Nightmare Fuel: Nuggets lose sixth straight to Wolves despite Jokic’s heroics

DENVER—For the second time this season, the Denver Nuggets blew a double-digit fourth-quarter lead to the Minnesota Timberwolves, and this time, it spoiled an epic Nikola Jokic game.

Minny’s 140-139 double overtime win was the sixth time in a row that they topped Denver, dating back to last year’s playoffs. After going up 3-2 on the team from the Twin Cities in the second round of last spring’s playoffs, the Nuggets have suffered their worst playoff loss ever by margin, the NBA’s biggest Game 7 collapse, and now a regular-season sweep to the same group during this campaign. Of the four, there was a blown 10-point lead by Denver, two blowout victories for the Wolves, and now a blown 16-point lead.

Tuesday’s was maybe the toughest of the group this season, given the Nuggets were up 100-89 with just 6:35 to play and got maybe the best game ever from Jokic despite missing both Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. The guard had a hamstring issue that held him out, while the forward is dealing with a personal family health issue.

The Nuggets sped out to a 21-5 start with second-year guard Jalen Pickett in the unit. Denver’s fast pace led to break points and got Rudy Gobert into early foul troubles, doubling the pain for Minesstoa—who were without Naz Reid and Donte DiVincenzo because of a fight against Detroit. But three-point shooting kept the Wolves in the game early, even with Jokic feasting for 16 points in the first.

It was just the beginning of a marvelous night where he played 53 minutes of the game’s 58—only taking a brief rest at the start of the second quarter, then finishing the game off with 40-straight minutes of action. The Wolves went on 11-2 and 10-0 runs around the switching of the periods, emphasizing the Nuggets’ reliance on Jokic, who didn’t take another break when he checked back in midway through the second with the lead all but gone. Jokic scored another 11 in the second quarter as the Nuggets’ offense couldn’t muster anything without him, rallying the Nuggets on another 9-1 spurt. But it was after the break when the game really went wild.

Jokic tallied another 10 in the third as the Wolves and Nuggets rock fought. It set up 28 points of pure dominance in the fourth quarter and overtime from the big fella. He started it with a 12-0 run, where he doubled the Wolves’ points in the fourth to put Denver up 11. He even got Gobert to foul out.

But the help never came for Jokic. The rest of the Nuggets were led by 30 points from Aaron Gordon. But multiple starters didn’t even register double digits despite the two extra periods, and the Nuggets only tallied 14 bench points.

While the Nuggets held Anthony Edwards tight for most of the game and slowed Julius Randle, the two combined for 35 points in the fourth quarter and overtimes. The two led a Wolves shooting barrage of 19 three-pointers as they took 50 from deep. Overall, the Wolves took a staggering 25 more shots than the Nuggets. Eventually, the numbers caught up to the Nuggets, and so too did the misses. Gordon and Christian Braun missed huge open shots late in the fourth quarter. Jokic kept the Nuggets alive with a career-high 24 trips to the free-throw line, forcing overtime on foul shots thanks to some good trapping defense by Peyton Watson, who had four blocks on the night.

The first possession of overtime was an omen of the final Denver one, a Westbrook mistake led to one of his two turnovers in the extra periods. And while the Wolves couldn’t miss, Jokic and Gordon answered with threes and eventually rallied the defense. The biggest play on that end came after Jokic missed a short shot that would’ve tied the game with seconds left in overtime, but Braun stole a horrible Edwards pass to set up another Jokic post shot that went in, sending the contest to double overtime, thanks again to some good defense from Watson.

The Wolves started the extra-extra time by banging threes, the Nuggets got to the hole to respond, and a Gordon three gave Jokic a triple-double to go with the 60 points he had already tallied. But two more missed shots and perhaps a missed call or two changed everything, leading to an all-time lowlight sequence in Nuggets history.

Down 138-137 with 20 seconds left, Westbrook went to the line where he split two free throws. Missing the second shot, the out-of-bounds appeared to go off of a Wolves player, but the referees didn’t see it and called a jump ball. With both teams out of challenges from lost reviews earlier in the game, the play stuck as a jump ball.

“Both teams were out of challenges at the time of the out of bounds, therefore you can’t review it,” Crew Chief Sean Wright said after the game.

The Nuggets lost their challenge midway through the second quarter on an Aaron Gordon charge. Though the Nuggets likely would’ve already used their challenge and possibly won the game when it was 111-110, and Jokic appeared to rip the ball clean from Gobert. Jokic quickly tossed a pass up-court to a wide-open Watson, who would’ve given the Nuggets a lead. Instead, Gobert hit the pair, and Jokic was given a fifth foul.

Fast forward to the jump ball.

It was nullified by a foul that sent Nikola Jokic to the free-throw line. He also split his shots to give the Nuggets a 139-138 lead with 17 seconds left.

But does that jump even happen if the Nuggets have their challenge? The ball appeared to go off the Wolves, but no officials saw it. And in a tie game, the Nuggets likely would’ve run the clock down all the way to take the final shot.

After Jokic’s foul shots, the Wolves advanced the ball and drew up a third chance to win at the horn. Edwards got the inbounds pass but was trapped in the corner. His pass to Julius Randle was taken by Westbrook, who sprinted up the floor. Joined by Braun, the two played catch, with Westbrook taking a layup with nine seconds left, which ended up being the Nuggets’ final shot. He missed. The Wolves rallied the rebound and hurried up the floor, where the ball made its way to Nickeil Alexander-Walker in the corner. His shot was not close, but Westbrook’s uncontrolled contest sent him to the line where NAW won it for the Wolves. That play was reviewed to see if there was time left when Westbrook was called for the foul, and that was unclear.

“Once we go to the monitor, the play is reviewed, and we see what time the illegal contact actually happened, the illegal contact occurred at 0.1, therefore, 0.1 is then put on the clock and you shoot the three free throws and play with that time,” Wright explained.

Both Westbrook’s decision to take the layup and the foul called on him with 0.1 seconds left were a lightning rod. But maybe worse is a sport that has almost all of its dramatic moments bogged down by reviews just tossing them out the window for the night. Neither team could do anything about three officials literally tossing their hands and ball up in the air because they couldn’t figure out a call with 20 seconds to go. Denver couldn’t question multiple game-changing calls.

It all resulted in another loss to the Wolves.

“Losing like that really sucks,” Michael Malone said. “But again, I just can’t say it enough. I know there’s a lot of talk to our guys not want to play against Minnesota. They’re scared of Minnesota, and I think hopefully tonight, I knew it. But for other people, we don’t fear anybody, I mean, and I know we can beat anybody on any given night, any matchup. So tremendous confidence in faith in this group.”

Jokic again torched Gobert, going toe-to-toe with the four-time Defensive Player of the Year and scorching for a career-high 61 points with 10 rebounds and 10 assists. It’s proof, as we’ve seen in all of these games, that even with Minny’s Jokic-focused big defense that clogs, the big man still heats up. The issue is and has been the supporting cast, as was true with last year’s brutal Game 7. Gordon is a difference-maker in the matchup, no doubt, and he nearly turned the tides as Robin. But it’s the defensive aspect where the Wolves outshot and out-glassed the Nuggets that continues to be the main concern for the matchup.

“We missed two guys, they missed two guys, we can’t turnover the ball is the main thing,” Jokic said of the team’s lessons learned, pointing out the 18 turnovers. “Resultaint defense, even if somebody makes a mistake somebody needs to step up, we need to make them work for everything and offensive rebounds but we knew that could happen with how we guarded.”

The Nuggets have six games left in the regular season, starting with the second half of this back-to-back on Wednesday against the Spurs. Denver is a game-and-a-half behind Houston (49-27) for second in the West, with the two set to meet on the season’s final day. The Nuggets are a half-game up on the Lakers (46-29), who are in fourth. The Wolves (44-32) are a half-game on either side in the seventh spot, while the Grizzlies’ (44-32) continued skid means they now occupy the sixth seed and would play the Nuggets in the first round if the season ended Tuesday night.

And everyone will be thinking about avoiding the Wolves, given the number they seem to have of the Nuggets. The two are very close to matching up in the first round. Denver likely will not want to take its chances with a second-year of Jokic’s prime ending to the team from the Twin Cities, no matter how much they proved or didn’t on Tuesday.

“When we beat them (the Wolves), we won a championship,” Jokic said. “I think we can beat them; the playoffs are different, and they’re a good team. We’re good, too. In the playoffs, everything is different, and anything can happen. They could beat us, but we could beat them too.”