MINNEAPOLIS — On one side of the curtain, the Nuggets tried to collect themselves. Dumbfounded, duped and left for dead by an opponent that looked unserious for most of the NBA season, their six-month period of self-reflection began in the same hallway where their rivals celebrated. A meager black curtain separated them and the Timberwolves, unconvincingly pulled back about halfway, providing the illusion of privacy more so than the real thing.
Vice chairman Josh Kroenke placed his hands on Jamal Murray’s shoulders as he said a few words to the star guard, who was tormented by the worst possible ending to the best year of his NBA career. First-year head coach David Adelman took an unusually long time to unwind before speaking to reporters. He was beaten to the podium by Nikola Jokic, usually the most unhurried superstar in the league after games. The order of operations felt as backward as the series of events that preceded it.
Other executives, coaches and support staff loitered in the hall, speaking in hushed tones if at all. There wasn’t much to say. They were still recovering from the whiplash of a 4-2 first-round playoff defeat that few saw coming.
Visible to them on the other side of the curtain, separated only by that superficial barrier, was Tim Connelly. The man who built the Nuggets, then built the team destined to destroy them. The man who says he still roots for them 78 games out of 82. The man who couldn’t be wrangled in 2022, when he walked away for the same job title and more money in Minnesota.
He was one of the first people greeting the Nuggets on the court after the final buzzer of their season. He hugged Jokic and Murray, the franchise cornerstones he drafted in 2014 and 2016. He politely ushered them into an offseason of discomfort and doubt.
After he skipped town, the Nuggets kept ascending, all the way to their first NBA championship in 2023. Since that moment, they’ve spent three years in decline. They bottomed out Thursday with a 110-98 season-ending loss to Connelly’s Timberwolves, who overcame injuries to Anthony Edwards, Donte DiVincenzo and Ayo Dosunmu.
“Unacceptable,” Nuggets guard Christian Braun said.
A second championship has never felt more out of Jokic’s reach. If it wasn’t Rudy Gobert standing in his way, it would have been Victor Wembanyama or Chet Holmgren.
“I mean, we just lost in the first round,” the three-time MVP said, “so I think we are far away.”
What happened?
The Nuggets were at a loss for sweeping conclusions in the aftermath of a humbling Game 6. They were sentenced to an early exit by their fatal flaws — vertical athleticism, ball-handling, 1-on-1 defense against quick guards — but they were also betrayed by their greatest strengths.
Jokic shot 44.6% from the field and 19.4% from 3-point range. It was his 17th career playoff series. It was the first in which he failed to deliver a 30-point performance. His Game 6 was a microcosm of his season, which he had recently assessed as “inconsistent.” Moments of brilliance in a 14-point third quarter were offset by stretches of inadequacy for a superstar, at both ends of the floor. He scored 13 in the other three quarters combined, missed his only shot attempt of the last eight minutes, provided little paint resistance against Minnesota’s driving guards and was dominated on the glass by Gobert.
“I needed to play better,” he said. “I must play better. I think I was getting in the rhythm from the third game. Little bit better in rhythm. But I needed to play much better the first couple games, first three games, just to get everybody involved, just to get the guys open, score. So I mean, give them credit. They were better this series.”
Murray’s shooting splits, dragged down by his 4-for-17 Game 6, were just as unflattering. He finished the series 35.7% overall and 26.2% from deep. If it wasn’t Jaden McDaniels hounding him, it would have been San Antonio’s Stephon Castle in the second round, or Oklahoma City’s Cason Wallace and Lu Dort down the road.
“I just didn’t show up tonight,” he said. “So that’s on me. The leader’s gotta show up.”
It was an especially cruel ending for him. He’s likely to be enshrined on his first All-NBA team this month. But it was also endemic of a symptom from Denver’s season-ending loss last year. In Game 7 at Oklahoma City, Murray was held to 13 points on 16 shots. Elite defenses have increasingly tested and thwarted Denver’s once-impenetrable two-man game in the playoff moments that often steer front offices in their decision-making. As Jokic and Murray both took the blame for Denver’s crash landing, it no longer mattered to the court of public opinion that they partnered for an astronomical 127.8 offensive rating this regular season.
All that mattered, suddenly, was the 193-minute sample of time they shared on the court during the playoffs. They produced a 103.2 offensive rating together against Minnesota.
“I mean, I think we are still good,” Jokic said when asked about his confidence in the duo moving forward. “I think we created the looks. Sometimes you need to make it. I think a miss doesn’t make you a bad player, and misses don’t make you a bad decision-maker. It’s a miss-or-make league. So we couldn’t make any shots. … I’m confident in my and Jamal’s two-man game.”
It wasn’t just them. Denver’s entire scoring ecosystem collapsed in Minnesota, enough to wonder if the series might prompt an existential crisis about the state of the roster, the state of the system. When Jokic played this regular season, the Nuggets never scored fewer than 100 points. They were held under that benchmark in all three road losses to the Timberwolves.
In Adelman’s introductory press conference as head coach a year ago, he was asked to pinpoint any traits he felt the roster needed more of entering his first full season. “There’s a premium on shot-making at the times you need it,” he answered.
“And when you get in those moments, it’s not just about making shots during the season. I never look at percentages because that’s not real when you get in those moments.”
The Nuggets led the NBA in 3-point shooting for the regular season (39.6%). On wide-open 3s, when the nearest defender was at least 6 feet away, they were 42.8%. The margin between them and the second-place team in that category was 2.3% — equal to the margin between second place and 17th.
It wasn’t real. They shot 32.1% on wide-open 3s in their six playoff games.
Their 2025 offseason acquisitions were mostly non-factors in the series, with the exception of Cam Johnson’s two gutsy elimination-game performances. Even those were somewhat unlocked by Minnesota’s injuries; Johnson no longer had Edwards guarding him by Games 5 and 6, enabling Denver to attack a mismatch.
Tim Hardaway Jr., a Sixth Man of the Year finalist on a minimum contract, shot 34.8% on his 3s. It was a 6% drop from his regular season. Bruce Brown committed nine turnovers to nearly match his 10 assists. He struggled in Game 6 especially, finishing the series 44.1% from the field. Backup center Jonas Valanciunas was a DNP for the first four games.
“I think you have to look at the different formulas of how we played (offensively) this year, what was most successful,” Adelman said when asked about the offense’s failure to translate its success to the playoffs. “And you have to really break it down more so into the types of teams that we struggled with, and what are the answers there to make things flow better for us. And I think that takes time.”
As he broke down the season-ending loss, the door at the back of the room was cracked open from the outside. Kroenke was listening from the hall.
Despite chatter that Adelman may already be on the hot seat one year into his tenure, the immediate sense within the organization is that he’ll be back for a second season. Before wiping out in the playoffs, he led the Nuggets to 54 wins in a regular season that forced him to use 28 different starting lineups due to various injuries. Jokic and Murray both defended him after the Game 6 loss.
“Right now when you’re frustrated and you’re pissed off, I could say a million things,” Adelman continued. “But that’s not gonna help us. We have to sit down as a group and really take a deep dive into who we are, who we can be as a group, who’s coming back that can help us do that. Right now, it’s gonna be what it is. There’s gonna be a narrative. There’s gonna be all these things. You have to have a real conversation about how to get better.”
Braun struggled to find his groove within the offense and lost confidence in his ability to go up strong around the rim, a painful coda to the most injury-plagued year of his life. The Nuggets prioritized him over Peyton Watson last offseason, extending him for five years and $125 million. The contract takes effect next season.
A $10 million raise is about to kick in for Aaron Gordon as well. He was a key variable missing from the second half of the series, sidelined by a calf injury. For most of the season, it was a hamstring. Last year, it was the other calf and the other hamstring. When the Nuggets struggle at either end of the floor, they usually refer to his absence and its domino effects — on their floor-spacing, on back-line defense, on ball-handling depth. He’s been one of the NBA’s most invaluable glue guys of the decade.
Those excuses ring hollow, from Jokic’s perspective, after faltering against such a depleted version of the Timberwolves. The two best players remaining in the series by the end were Nuggets. Or should have been.
“Oklahoma missed probably the most players of everybody, and they’re still No. 1 and still dominating the league,” Jokic said. “So I hate those ‘if’ situations. … I don’t want to blame injuries for not making the second round in the playoffs.”
What’s next?
Uncomfortable discussions loom about Denver’s core around Jokic, including whether the 30-year-old Gordon can stay healthy for eight consecutive weeks of playoff basketball at this stage of his career. The Nuggets know from experience how many roster flaws he covers up. But those flaws bubble to the surface every time he’s hurt. At the very least, he will no longer be considered off the table as a trade candidate when team brass meets to discuss next steps, league sources have told The Post.
One of the Nuggets’ top priorities will be retaining restricted free agent Peyton Watson, and if they do, at least one current starter is almost guaranteed to be sacrificed in a corresponding cost-cutting move.
Johnson is considered by league sources the most likely candidate to be traded, in part because he has a reasonable $23 million expiring salary next season. But Gordon and Braun will also be in a similar salary range. Denver’s first-round flame-out was disastrous enough that anyone other than Jokic could feasibly be shipped off.
“Obviously I have confidence in us getting back and (winning a title) because we have done it. … This team is so good that every time you lose early is a disappointment,” Braun said. “So we’ve gotta be better. I know we can do it with this group. Whatever happens (this offseason), happens. We’ve gotta find a way to get better. You can’t blame anything. You can’t blame injuries. You can’t blame health. They had injuries, too, and they kicked our (butt).”
The opponent only added to the pain. With so many guards out, Connelly’s Timberwolves got a 24-point boost from Terrence Shannon Jr., the 27th draft pick in 2024. The Nuggets traded three future second-round picks to move up in that draft from 28th to 22nd, in part because they suspected Minnesota was going to poach their preferred prospect at No. 27. That prospect was DaRon Holmes II, who tore an Achilles tendon two weeks after the draft and has played only a handful of meaningful NBA minutes in his first two years.
Minnesota has now advanced deeper into the playoffs than Denver three consecutive seasons, starting in 2024, with Denver’s infamous 20-point Game 7 collapse. The Timberwolves gleefully celebrated their comeback at Ball Arena that night. Jaden McDaniels tried to rub it in the Nuggets’ faces with a meaningless dunk in the last minute. Jokic protested. It didn’t escalate. But it laid the groundwork for similar fireworks in the rematch two years later, with McDaniels at the center of all bitter emotions.
The 2024 loss stung because the Nuggets knew they were good enough to win the championship. The 2026 loss stings because they were jolted awake to the unforeseen reality that they weren’t good enough.
Not athletic enough to match the Timberwolves’ defining skillset. Not tough enough to withstand their physicality for the length of a series. Perhaps not offended enough by their bulletin board material offerings.
“If you saw the interviews, all of them are excited to play us. They got up to play us,” Murray said. “They enjoyed playing us. And we have to match that. We have to feel the same way about them. I’m sure we will next year. They took this matchup, you could say, kind of personal and wanted it really bad. We’ve gotta want it more.”
On the other side of the curtain, Connelly beamed at his team’s resilience. His head coach and players took a victory lap in the media. He could bask in the satisfaction of an increasingly one-sided rivalry more quietly. The series result itself was already a bitter enough pill for his old friends down the hall to swallow. They’ll be processing it for the next few months. Denver might find itself reeling from the fallout.
That which he built, he could also dismantle.
