It’s very dark in Denver: Nuggets lose fourth-straight, Murray’s injury situation gets murky

The collapse is underway in Denver as the Nuggets dropped a fourth-straight game on Sunday night and are now toying with the Play-In Tournament.

This time the Nuggets (47-32) lost to the Indiana Pacers 125-120, throwing three turnovers in four possessions down the stretch—emphasizing how much the team misses Jamal Murray, who was out for a fifth-straight game. Murray’s right hamstring injury is no longer a case of rest, as Michael Malone didn’t guarantee his participation for the NBA Playoffs before the Pacers game.

“Jamal’s hurt. It’s not careful. He’s hurt. So there’s a big difference. Careful is if a guy can play and you want to be smart. We’re not in a situation to do that,” Malone said. “Hopefully, he’s able to be back by then. This has been a weird one. It was day-to-day, day-to-day, and then next thing you know, it’s not day-to-day.”

So again, the Nuggets were on the back of Nikola Jokic, who carried them with an unreal performance of 41 points, 15 rebounds and 13 assists and, again, it wasn’t enough. Jokic became the first center to tally 32 triple-doubles in a single season, passing a mark set by Wilt Chamberlain. Despite getting some huge help from Christian Braun’s career high of 30 points, including a run of 11 of the Nuggets’ last 13 points, there just wasn’t enough help for Joker. The Nuggets’ nine players outside of that duo combined for just 49 points, with two starters struggling to score five or fewer points.

Things were so ugly for the Nuggets, even early when they got out to multiple-digit leads, that there seemed to be an animated conversation on the bench between Aaron Gordon and Peyton Watson. The Pacers pretty much thrashed Denver after the first quarter, thanks to 15 threes while only tossing seven turnovers.

Uhhh what just happened here between Aaron Gordon and Peyton Watson? pic.twitter.com/Cl1IbhQAAj

— Jake Shapiro (@Shapalicious) April 7, 2025

“We’ve lost four games in a row, and I’m never going to (blame guys). How about me as a head coach? I’m not doing my job to the best of my ability, and that’s why I challenge our guys. We haven’t lost four in a row own a long time,” Malone said in a seemingly connected quote to the slight alteration. “And it’s easy to be together and say, family when you win, but when you lose in games, can you stay together? And do you have the balls? Do you have the courage to go home and look in the mirror and say, ‘What can I be doing better to help this team’… no one’s going to feel sorry for us. And so we put ourselves in this hole and we only have ourselves to pull ourselves out of it. And I look forward to seeing how we respond.”

The Nuggets got punched in the mouth and it was met with little resistance on Sunday.

“Quarters two and three, we guarded nobody,” Malone said.

Worse was the lack of response. The Nuggets nearly erased a late 10-point lead on the back on Braun’s flurry but it was undone by those turnovers—with the last one being Jokic not finding a single teammate moving where he wanted them while he tossed it into the backcourt.

“We have to get this bad taste out of our mouths because I hate losing, and it’s driving me crazy,” Malone said.

The Nuggets have three games left this season, with a road game against Sacramento on Wednesday next up. If Denver doesn’t get its act right, they might be meeting the Kings in the Play-In Tournament. The Nuggets (in fourth place) with 32 losses are now tied with Golden State in fifth, Minnesota in sixth, Los Angeles in seventh and Memphis in eighth, all with 32 losses as well. The Nuggets have one more win on everyone but the Warriors and own tiebreakers or could earn them against everyone except the Wolves.

“Whatever it is, we got to find a way to get this out of our system,” Malone said. “I think our guys are ready to do that.”

Three games left against three postseason-bound teams for the Nuggets—here are the standings pic.twitter.com/DrYf9W8syK

— Jake Shapiro (@Shapalicious) April 7, 2025