“Why did the Cubbies lose the 2003 NLCS?” he would ask.

If they answered “Bartman,” or “Steve Bartman,” or anything that sounded remotely like “Bartman,” my pal would wish ’em well, shake his head, and move on. (The correct answer, then and now, is )

We decided the other day that the same test could be applied to Michael Porter Jr. and the Nuggets.

“Would Denver have beaten the Timberwolves in 2026 if they still had MPJ?”

If somebody answers yes, they’re saying something. They’re telling you they’ve never really watched the Nuggets without telling you that they’ve never really watched the Nuggets.

They’re telling you they follow this team via TikTok. Or Xwitter highlights. Or only when the Nuggets happened to be playing the Lakers in the postseason.

“I guess they might miss me,” Porter, now of the Brooklyn Nets, cracked this past week when asked about his former team’s epic choke job “I don’t know. Probably not.”

Yeah, probably not.

MPJ was a good soul, tougher than old leather, He was also a notoriously here.

The brighter the lights, the tighter Porter got. The closer MPJ flew to the sun, the more his wings melted.

When last Denver fans saw Porter in the NBA Playoffs, the pride of Mizzou averaged 7.4 points, 5.3 boards and 0.6 dimes per game in the 2025 Western semis against Oklahoma City. Porter shot at a 25% clip from beyond the arc (9-36).

Yes, MPJ put up those numbers with just one working shoulder. Yes, he played hurt, played through all kinds of pain. Again — tough, tough, tough dude. The spirit was willing, even as the body failed him.

“If I would have been on the Nuggets,” , “we wouldn’t have lost to the Wolves.”

Cherish your history. Just don’t revise it. Remember the last time the Nuggets were eliminated from the postseason by Minnesota? No? Quick refresher: MPJ was Deadpool in Los Angeles and Nicepool in Minneapolis.

With two functional shoulders, Porter averaged 10.7 points, 5.7 rebounds and an assist against the Timberwolves in the 2024 Western Conference semis. He made 32.5% of his looks beyond the arc (13-40).

MPJ dropped 20 on Minny in Game 1. He would go on to score nine or fewer in five of the next six contests. With the Nuggets leading 3-2 in the series, he’d average just 7.5 points in Games 6 and 7, two setbacks that loom even larger in hindsight, and was 2 for 12 on treys.

“I’m a better player than I played in this series,” Porter said after the Nuggets blew Game 7 to Minnesota and Anthony Edwards at home. “I’m a better shooter than I shot in this series. In the NBA, you’ve got to be able to separate off-the-court matters with your on-the-court play. So I don’t have any excuses. … I told my teammates, ‘Sorry.’ I feel like this is on me.”

It wasn’t all on MPJ, to be fair. But when the Nuggets needed a hero,

Cam Johnson, the man who came over in the trade that sent Porter to the Nets last summer, averaged 14 points, 3.2 boards, 2.3 assists against Minnesota in the first round this season. Faced with elimination in Game 6, Johnson dropped 27 points, eight boards and five treys on the Wolves.

The memory. Oh, how it cheats.

It’s not the guy. It was never the guy. It was the contract. Porter came with a $38.3-million cap hit in ’25-26 and a $40.8-million cap hit next season.

The Nuggets don’t land Tim Hardaway Jr., Bruce Brown, Jonas Valanciunas and Johnson if they keep MPJ.

The Nuggets don’t win 54 games in the regular season if they keep MPJ.

The Nuggets don’t go 11-6 while Nikola Jokic is hurt if they keep MPJ.

The Nuggets probably don’t see peak Peyton Watson if they keep MPJ.

And the Nuggets probably don’t get past Minnesota in ’26 if they keep MPJ. No matter what your favorite fantasy basketball expert says while he’s thinking with his thumbs.

“I didn’t like that (Aaron Gordon) was hurt, I didn’t like that (Watson) couldn’t do his thing,” Porter told the ‘Road Trippin’ Show.’ “I was talking to Christian Braun during the series. He hurt his ankle the first game, and he played through it same way I played through a shoulder injury last year. Now, he’s getting killed on social media, especially since the comments he made. Those are my guys. I wanted them to do well.”

Meanwhile, the four guys who replaced him averaged 33.2 points per game in the Wolves series. Let him go. As the Nuggets just proved,

“I have full faith in Coach Adelman,” team president and KSE vice chairman Josh Kroenke said Friday at Ball Arena. “I think he coached a hell of a season, all things considered.”

Kroenke defended Adelman when pressed during a news conference about Denver’s decision to retain him for a second season. The Nuggets were eliminated by Minnesota in the first round of the NBA playoffs, marking the first time since 2022 that they haven’t advanced to a second-round series and bringing a sour end to Adelman’s first season as an NBA head coach.

“This isn’t an organization that makes changes like we made last year lightly,” Kroenke said, referring to the 2025 firing of Michael Malone. “We don’t take those decisions lightly. So I think the quote from myself last year was that we needed to reinvent ourselves, but not reinvent the wheel. And I think we did that in a lot of ways. I want to give credit to, one, DA, and then (the front office) for pressing a lot of the right buttons last summer to put ourselves in a new kind of (situation to) turn the page without fully breaking apart a true championship team.”

Adelman, who turns 45 next week, was a Nuggets assistant under Malone from 2017-25. He took over as interim head coach last April, with three games left in the regular season, and led the Nuggets to the second round of the NBA Playoffs, where they came within one win of upsetting the eventual champion Oklahoma City Thunder. With the locker room’s endorsement, Adelman was able to shed the “interim” tag.

His first full year at the helm was defined by injury instability. He used 28 different starting lineups in the regular season. He navigated a month without three-time MVP Nikola Jokic, the longest absence of his 11-year career, going 10-6 without the superstar center. And he shepherded the team into the playoffs on a 12-game win streak. The Nuggets finished with a 54-28 record, good enough for the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference.

But they crashed and burned in the first round, losing in six games to their archrivals. By the end of the series, the Timberwolves were missing star guard Anthony Edwards and starting two-guard Donte DiVincenzo.

Jokic stuck up for Adelman after the season-ending loss, asserting that the outcome wasn’t his fault. Jamal Murray also praised the first-year coach in the aftermath of a disappointing Game 6.

“While we’re very proud that we won 54 games, I’m most proud of that stretch (in January), the way that the coaching staff was without Nikola,” Kroenke said. “I think when Nikola is on your roster, you should be winning 50 games probably. So that’s a great accomplishment in most NBA circles, but for us, I think that’s where we expect to be. And we expect to be even higher. I thought that if this group was healthy, that this could be a 60-, 65-win team.”

A man who never tires of helping out — even when it means helping complete strangers change a tire.

Won’t lie: It’s been a brutal few days for the Grading The Week interns, who make scour social media for Front Range items of note. Especially as the Nuggets just performed one of the most epic face-plants in Colorado playoff history up in Minnesota.

Man, those memes are mean. And Jaden McDaniels was right, which stings even more.

But first, let’s get the good stuff. From a good dude.

Bolles’ tire-changing moment — A

Earlier in the week, to her feed showing a very large, muscular man with the number “72” on his right sleeve adjusting the bolts on the driver’s-side front tire on the side of a busy road.

In the video, our “72” — who’s clearly Bolles, the Broncos’ Pro Bowl left tackle and — appears to be explaining what he’s doing to a young man standing just behind him, taking mental notes, as the traffic passes them both.

“OK?” Bolles says at one point. “And you go around …”

The video loops from there, because, well, TikTok. But the accompanying caption sums it up rather neatly — which, when translated from its original Spanish, reads:

“Thanks to this gentleman, a player for the Denver Broncos, who helped me change my tire. He is an angel; God bless him.”

And let’s be straight — this tale fits GB’s M.O. to a ‘T.’ The former first-round draft pick, now 33, is also a former Eagle Scout. Bolles, the Broncos’ 2025 nominee for the NFL’s Walter Payton Man of the Year Award, has been a fixture in the community over the last decade or so,

True hearts never lie. True protectors never rest. Like his ex-Broncos teammate Justin Simmons, who announced his retirement earlier this week, Bolles is one of those guys you’d be proud to call a friend or a neighbor.

Actually, he’s one of those guys you’d call to help you move. Or to help carry a piano up five flights of stairs. Or to help change a tire in a pinch.

At any rate, the next time one of our wheels comes off, Bolles is the guy we want in our corner. To say nothing of our pit crew.

Nuggets-Timberwolves — F-minus minus minus minus minus minus

For obvious reasons. Shot-making comes and goes. But effort is a constant you can control. The thing that stuck dagger after dagger into the hoops kids on the GTW crew was watching Minnesota in Game 6 — again, without Anthony Edwards, Donte DiVincenzo and Ayo Dosunmu — seemingly beat the Nuggets to every 50-50 ball.

And beating Denver to what felt like 70% of the loose balls and what felt like 75% of the possible rebounds. The more you think about it, the worse it looks — a Nuggets team that started two All-Stars lost in six games to a No. 6 seed that on Thursday was missing three wing guards who averaged 55 points and eight 3-point makes during the regular season. That’s not just an Aaron Gordon thing. That’s not just a Peyton Watson thing. It’s a culture thing. It’s an accountability thing.

David Adelman = New Tiger King? — F

Watching the Nuggets for the last eight days or so was a hard enough slog. But ever since compared a picture of Nuggets coach David Adelman to one of And Heaven help us, we’ve tried.

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.

“Definitely if we were in Serbia,” he said after the Nuggets’ season-ending loss on Thursday night to the Timberwolves, “we would all get fired.”

He made the quip in response to a question about what changes are needed in Denver this offseason. His joke was coupled with a deflection: It’s not his decision, the three-time MVP claimed, even though Nuggets brass runs practically every major decision by him.

Yet when the topic of coach David Adelman came up, Jokic did offer up a staunch opinion.

“It was nothing (to do with him),” he said, insisting that criticism of Adelman is unfair. “It’s not his fault that we could not rebound. It’s not his fault that we could not catch the ball very well. So there is nothing to blame to David Adelman. It was all us.”

Adelman’s first regular season at the helm was characterized by resilience. The Nuggets won 54 games despite a litany of injuries.

His first playoff run ended in disaster — a first-round exit at the hands of the rival Timberwolves, who finished the series without their starting backcourt available. It was the first time in four years that Denver failed to win a playoff series.

Jokic and his co-star, Jamal Murray, both defended Adelman after the shocking season-ending loss, as hot-seat chatter began to inevitably circulate about the rookie head coach. Adelman has worked for the Nuggets since 2017.

“He is amazing,” Murray said. “He is still getting his feet wet with all the adjustments and injuries, and managing emotions and all that stuff. It’s a hard job. You have a lot of different personalities you have to think about, and game-time decisions. Possession by possession. It was a great season for all that we went through. I just wish I could’ve done better for my team tonight.”

Jokic and Murray both took the blame after a 110-98 Game 6 loss. Adelman also took accountability for Murray’s poor performance and the series’ overall result.

“I’m the head coach,” he said. “I take responsibility for things that didn’t go well here.”

Adelman, 44, took over as interim head coach last April when Denver fired Michael Malone with three games left in the regular season. The Nuggets reached the second round of the playoffs and took first-place Oklahoma City to seven games. The Thunder advanced to win their first NBA title.

The Nuggets felt like they salvaged a season that had been spinning out of control when Malone and ex-general manager Calvin Booth lost their jobs. Adelman was promoted to the full-time gig. A new front office was assembled around him. Denver was lauded for its offseason moves, which supplied more depth to help Adelman navigate the regular season.

But in the playoffs, the Nuggets succumbed to a Minnesota team missing Anthony Edwards and Donte DiVincenzo as it closed out two of its four wins.

“Complete disappointment,” Adelman said. “We went into the series with belief we could win. I felt really good about the build-up to Game 1. And after Game 1, you felt good about the way we started Game 2. And obviously, that fell apart. But it’s hard to look at the whole thing in its totality right now, because right now, it just sucks. … For it to end like this is extremely disappointing.”

Adelman highlighted overall day-to-day team management when asked about lessons from his first year as an NBA head coach.

“I think I learned something every week, every month,” he said. “I’ll be honest. You learn how to coach in different ways, dealing with different things. That goes not with just the basketball. But with the players daily. The film sessions. How you schedule things. And I know that’s not basketball related, but it really does matter when it comes to winning, flow, formula, routine for players. There’s things that I thought went really well and other things that I have to reconsider. And in these jobs, in any of these jobs, if you’re not trying to get better, then you shouldn’t be doing it.”

The three-time MVP center has said it before: He doesn’t envision himself playing anywhere in the NBA other than Denver.

He didn’t waver from that commitment after a shocking first-round exit in the NBA Playoffs.

“I still want to be Nuggets forever,” Jokic said after a season-ending 110-98 Game 6 loss to the Timberwolves.

So, he was asked, does that mean it’s safe to assume he’ll sign on the dotted line this offseason?

“I still want to be Nuggets forever,” he repeated.

Jokic blamed himself for the series loss, which ended with Minnesota persevering through injuries to Anthony Edwards, Donte DiVincenzo, Ayo Dosunmu and Kyle Anderson.

The Serbian big man averaged 25.8 points, 13.2 and 9.5 assists in the six-game series, which earned him criticism nationally and locally for his performance against Minnesota’s Rudy Gobert. He shot 44.6% from the field — a significant drop-off from his usual efficiency — and 19.4% from the 3-point line, continuing a trend of poor outside shooting that dates back to his return from a knee injury in January.

“They were aggressive. They were pushing us off our spots. They rebounded really well,” Jokic said, praising the Timberwolves. “I couldn’t get guys open. I couldn’t make screens. I couldn’t make shots. So they were just better, basically in every aspect of the game. Like, we put up a fight, but we didn’t have it.”

Jokic declined an extension offer last offseason for three years and an estimated $207 million, preferring to delay contract talks until this summer when he can accept more money and term. This offseason, he’s eligible for an estimated additional $80 million.

Only a mirror was required.

“This is on me,” Murray said after scoring a humbling 12 points in the 110-98 loss to the Timberwolves. “You guys have seen me make shots. … I was able to get to my spots and I wasn’t able to convert. That����ap the frustrating part. They are playing good defense. All these guys are playing physical, chasing me around. And when I get the looks I need, they don’t go down.”

The Timberwolves, in general, and Jaden McDaniels, specifically, made life miserable for Murray in Game 6. In a series colored by injuries — Minnesota was missing its starting backcourt in Anthony Edwards and Donte DiVincenzo, and the Nuggets were without Aaron Gordon and Peyton Watson — Denver could ill-afford its stars not to meet the moment.

After a slow first quarter, Nikola Jokic delivered, finishing with 28 points, nine rebounds and 10 assists. He needed help. And Murray, who has forged his reputation on performing playoff magic, came up small in the season’s biggest game.

The wheels came off in the second quarter. Murray shot seven times. One went in. And while he had to work hard to create space, he got good looks. The clank sound off the front and back of the rim became the soundtrack to one of the most disappointing playoff losses in franchise history.

Overall, Murray missed 13 of 17 shots. And for the third time in six games, he failed to make a 3-pointer. The final numbers were staggering. Murray was 11-for-42 from behind the arc (26.1%) after posting a career-best 43.5% mark during the regular season, his first as an All-Star.

“Jamal just had a tough (game)” coach David Adelman said. “I feel for him. Everybody who is here and watched us, I am sure they are going to kill Jamal Murray. But, we have seen what he can do in these games and it just wasn’t his night.”

A 6.5-point favorite, the Nuggets wilted in the fourth. They had no answer for McDaniels, and Murray, the one player capable of matching his scoring, never got going.

Despite getting outrebounded and outhustled, the Nuggets remained tethered, clinging to hope late. Trailing 98-95 after McDaniels missed a layup, Murray popped open for a wide-open 3 with 4:12 remaining in the game.

Like so many jumpers in this series, his aim was off.

Murray averaged 23.6 points against Minnesota, but his field goal percentage spiraled to 35.6 %, 13 points lower than his regular-season standard.

“That����ap the frustrating part. Not showing up when my team needed me most,” Murray said. “I feel like if I had played a little better that we would have had that game. I take accountability for it. Rough night. They move on. We just need to be better. If I  play a little better I feel like we win. But I didn’t.”

It was never really Joker vs. Ant.

It was always Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray vs. Rudy Gobert and Jaden McDaniels.

By Game 6, the two best offensive players remaining in the war of attrition resided in Denver. But the two best defenders in the series were the last men standing. Both play for the Timberwolves, winners of a 110-98 Game 6 shocker to send the Nuggets packing Thursday night — Gobert standing tall between Jokic and glory, McDaniels staying glued to the hip of Murray.

Anthony Edwards, Donte DiVincenzo, Ayo Dosunmu and Kyle Anderson were all sidelined by various injuries and ailments. It did not matter. The Timberwolves advanced to face the San Antonio Spurs in the second round. And with a 4-2 series loss, Denver was eliminated in the first round of the NBA Playoffs for the first time since 2022, a time when Murray was unable to play due to a torn ACL.

Murray was never his All-NBA self with the season on the line. The best year of his career ended with a 4-for-17 shooting performance in Minnesota. He was contained to 12 points. Jokic provided a monster performance in the third quarter to give his team hope, but his slow start also contributed to the hole the Nuggets dug. His fizzle-out of a finish helped guarantee their fate. He finished with 28 points, nine rebounds and 10 assists on 11 of 19 shooting, completing one of the least efficient playoff series he’s ever played.

McDaniels, who cut through the Nuggets’ egos early in the series with fearless words and a smug grin, got the last laugh. He scored 30 points, including a pull-up midrange jumper with a minute remaining to put Minnesota up by 7. Terrence Shannon Jr. added 24 points.

The team constructed by former Nuggets executive Tim Connelly has ended its season twice in the last three years.

Cam Johnson kept Denver’s season on life support for the first half. He had started feasting on Mike Conley and the Timberwolves in Game 5, when they no longer had Edwards to throw at him. As Jokic and Murray struggled early in Game 6, his downhill scoring continued to buoy them. So did his outside shooting. He confidently buried a deep 3-pointer over Gobert in the first quarter, bringing a swagger to the Twin Cities that nobody else could seem to muster.

He had 15 points and seven rebounds at halftime. Jokic and Murray had 15 points combined at a 7-for-20 shooting clip.

McDaniels held onto Murray for dear life — often literally clasping his jersey — as the Nuggets tried to run him off every conceivable screen. They couldn’t generate space for him. He couldn’t shake free of McDaniels himself, either. He was unsure of himself off the dribble. When he finally got free for a handoff, courtesy of an off-ball screen from Christian Braun, he got to the cup but couldn’t finish a runner. He was too out of rhythm.

Uncertainty defined Braun’s night as well. It characterized his entire series. He pulled the ball out of the paint several times, not wanting to test his ability to explode off a bum ankle. He was held to three points on four shots in 27 minutes.

The Wolves chanted “DE-FENSE” as they paraded back to their locker room to celebrate.

When the Nuggets tried to increase their physicality on offense, they were punished several times with illegal screen calls — which Timberwolves coach Chris Finch had lobbied for after Game 5.

“When you play against high-level defensive players, there’s gonna be times you have to (do) a little extra to get somebody open,” Nuggets coach David Adelman said pregame. “And as long as you’re staying within the guidelines of what’s somewhat legal, I think you’re OK. Because obviously, Gobert does what he does. So I think all is fair in this series.”

Tensions between rivals boiled over at the end of Game 4, when Jokic took exception to a garbage-time layup McDaniels scored with 1.3 seconds remaining. A sequel skirmish occurred early in the fourth quarter of Game 6, when feisty young Wolves guard Jaylen Clark lightly shoved Jokic in the back and Jokic retaliated more aggressively. Naz Reid nearly escalated the exchange into a brawl, but the parties were ultimately separated enough to avoid ejections. Jokic, Reid and Clark all picked up technical fouls.

Desperate for answers, Adelman went back to Tyus Jones, Denver’s 15th man, who was quietly impactful in Game 5. He handled the ball for most of the fourth quarter in pick-and-rolls with Jokic, facilitating a handful of key shots to whittle an eight-point deficit to one.

Then the Nuggets burned themselves with a bad rotation in help defense. They left Reid wide open in the corner. He buried a clutch shot. Minnesota pushed it back out to 8.

Forced to throw stuff at the wall, Finch found a winning lineup late in the series by going ultra-big, with Reid at the three, Randle at the four and Gobert anchoring at center — a move as unexpected and as effective as Adelman putting the ball in Jones’ hands with the season on the line.

The Wolves bullied Denver with offensive rebounds throughout the night, even when bruising backup center Jonas Valanciunas was on the floor. Jokic stayed in the game to start the fourth quarter as Adelman felt the margin for error was narrow enough that his star player couldn’t be lent a breather.

The Nuggets fell to 11-7 in the Jokic era when facing elimination in the playoffs. They’ve never won a true road elimination game — with a full house of opposing fans — in his career. Their other losses were in 2022 at Golden State and in Game 7 at Oklahoma City last year.

David Adelman elaborated on why he didn’t as Denver prepared for Game 6 against the Timberwolves.

“I talk to my guys individually and as a team in the locker room,” he said. “You guys aren’t on our team. They hear my message every day. And I have extreme confidence in this team. There’s a reason why these guys won 54 games with all these different lineups. They trust each other. And yeah, it sucks to play poorly in the playoffs. But that doesn’t mean they’re not competitive. They’re competitive. Obviously. What we saw the other night (in Game 5) speaks to that. That’s who they are.”

Adelman, 44, pushed back at reporters after Game 4 of the series for questioning his team’s competitive spirit in a 112-96 loss. Minnesota starters Anthony Edwards and Donte DiVincenzo both suffered injuries that knocked them out for the series in the first half of that game, but the Timberwolves caught a second wind anyway after halftime.

“I don’t care what you write,” the longtime Nuggets assistant and first-year head coach said. “I really don’t. I know what the team feels. I know what they felt before the game. The narrative doesn’t matter to me.”

Adelman remained snippy after a Game 5 win back home at Ball Arena on Monday. Emotions had eased up a few days later. Denver went into Game 6 at Target Center on Thursday night needing two more wins to advance past the depleted Wolves.

In addition to Edwards and DiVincenzo, Ayo Dosunmu (calf) and Kyle Anderson (inning) were both ruled out before opening tip as health continued to take its toll on the first-round series. Timberwolves players arrived for the game wearing DiVincenzo’s jersey to honor the shooting guard, who tore his Achilles tendon in Game 4 and rejoined the team Thursday after an out-of-town surgery.

“Great to see his smile,” Wolves coach Chris Finch said before Game 6. “Everything is going well so far, early out of the gates. He was in getting some rehab. … He means a lot to us, and (we all) know how the guys feel about him.”

For Denver, Aaron Gordon was a late scratch from the lineup, missing his third game of the series. Peyton Watson also remained out.

The remnants of the Nuggets? Adelman made clear that he plans to stand by them, win or lose, as a lousy situation unfolded at the end of the first round in the Twin Cities.

“I understand that people want me to crush our guys after losses,” he said. “But I’m not gonna do that when I know the temperament of the team. Playing poorly is not being uncomfortable.”

Aaron Gordon’s status for Game 6 of Denver’s first-round playoff series is up in the air, coach David Adelman said after a light practice — he described it as more of a walk-through — at Target Center on Wednesday.

Gordon experienced left calf tightness after a Game 2 loss. He missed Game 3. He played Game 4 but was visibly struggling in 23 minutes of action. He sat out again for Game 5, a 125-113 Nuggets win that kept their season alive. He’s officially listed as questionable for Game 6, while Peyton Watson (right hamstring) remains out.

Down 3-2 to Minnesota, the Nuggets are still facing two more elimination games if they want to advance past the first round. If Gordon does try to play in Game 6 on Thursday (7:30 p.m. MT), his athleticism and mobility will be tested in a high-stakes, high-intensity environment. Can he stay on the court and be effective if he’s as limited as he was in Game 4?

“I thought Aaron in the first half (of Game 4) was very different from Aaron in the second half — and I know in both halves, he wasn’t moving great,” Adelman said. “So I’m not saying he looked great the first half. But I thought his mobility, the way he guarded Randle in the post, we need that. I thought in the second half, you could see the wear and tear. Not to mention, for me, one of the hardest parts of a guy like that with a soft tissue thing is that you’ve gotta get him back on the court quicker (after he subs out). And I think when you get to halftime, you sit there for 20 minutes, that doesn’t help anybody. So I’m not a doctor. I’m not a trainer. But obviously, you guys could see it. I could see it. There is a point where it’s not good for him; it’s not good for the team.”

Gordon totaled nine points and one rebound on a 4-for-11 shooting performance in Game 4. Spencer Jones replaced him in the starting lineup for Game 5, amassing 20 points, three rebounds and three blocks in a home win.

“Everybody knows Aaron wants to play,” Adelman said. “The guy’s the ultimate teammate. He’s been so good for us over the years. But we have to do what’s right for him and the team.”

Meanwhile, the Timberwolves are adapting to life without their starting backcourt as they prepare for their only chance to close out the series at home. Mike Conley and Ayo Dosunmu started in Game 5, while Chris Finch tried getting minutes from young guards Terrence Shannon Jr. (14) and Jaylen Clark (11) off the bench. A poor defensive showing cost Shannon more playing time in Minnesota’s loss, despite his 15-point contribution.

“I think you have to presuppose that Shannon saw the ball go in; I would think he would play more,” Adelman said. “So that’s a different kind of personnel you’re talking about. How does he drive the basketball? His offensive rebounding. … The nuances of a series are interesting. Not to mention, for us, if Aaron doesn’t play tomorrow, our spacing is completely different. It’s a different kind of defense. If they decide to double Nikola (Jokic) at the nail, whatever it may be, Aaron is very different than Spencer.

“That’s how these series are for both coaching staffs. … You pre-suppose, and you prepare the best you can.”

Adding one more wrinkle to all the uncertainty, Timberwolves guard Bones Hyland was also listed as questionable for Game 6 due to knee soreness. The former Nugget scored 15 points in 23 minutes off the bench in Game 5, helping Minnesota fill the void left behind by injuries to Anthony Edwards and Donte DiVincenzo.

“It’s not great. You wish those guys were healthy,” Jamal Murray said Wednesday. “Especially the way they went down. But it is what it is. We’ve just gotta make sure we get the job done … There’s so many guys on their team that can (impact) the game in a different way. We’ve just gotta be locked in on what they like to do and take away their energy while they’re at home.”

Screen time

One of the least delectable narratives in this series’ headlines has been one of the most important talking points in the Nuggets’ locker room: screening.

Adelman and Murray have both pinpointed it as a critical missing piece when the offense has faltered. The term “physicality” is often associated with defense, but Denver’s lack of offensive physicality, the first-year coach said, was a major reason shots dried up in Games 3 and 4.

The Nuggets weren’t forcing Minnesota into tough defensive decisions enough, which can be accomplished by freeing up your best players from their primary matchups.

Players took the message to heart in Game 5. Finch took notice.

“I thought one of the biggest things they did was they set a ton of illegal screens,” the Wolves coach said. “They really came out and tried to screen well, and also separate Rudy (Gobert) in particular. I thought there were a lot of illegal screens called in that game, and they could’ve called double the amount.”

Denver was called for a whopping 10 offensive fouls. They were proof of concept.

“I mean, it goes both ways,” Murray said, “because then the other team starts to do it back, and then now we start to get the benefit of the whistle sometimes. So it’s good. It’s basketball. It’s competitive. You can’t control every single whistle, but you can set the tone and not allow the other team to get to certain spots, certain actions.”

Cam Johnson attack mode

One of the players benefiting from good screening was Johnson, who went for 18 points, six rebounds, and five assists in his best game of the series. Denver’s 3-point shooting has plummeted from the regular season to the first round. But Johnson has been one of the most efficient inside-the-arc scorers in the series. He took advantage of not having Edwards defending him in Game 5, aggressively turning the corner and getting downhill on his dribble handoff opportunities.

He’s shooting 6-for-25 from downtown (24%) but 17-for-22 from 2-point range (77.3%) entering Game 6.

“I just feel like those opportunities are there,” he said. “Just gotta get the behind-the-arc to catch up. But that’s the life of a shooter. You shoot a lot of them, and if they feel good, they feel good. And you move on. But it’s just trying to take advantage of the fact that they don’t want me to shoot 3s. And if they do, I would appreciate that.”

Avoiding the role player heat check

Rule of thumb in the NBA playoffs: A random role player is generally considered more likely to have a big shooting game at home than on the road. Case in point? The 20 points Denver got from Spencer Jones in Game 5. Or the 43 Minnesota got from Ayo Dosunmu off the bench in Game 4.

Now the Wolves get another turn on home turf. Adelman knows the Nuggets have to be vigilant about not getting caught in rotation or punished for helping off of a shooter.

“We have to bring second defenders sometimes, especially with (Julius) Randle,” he said. “But you have to be really clean to make sure you’re getting quality contests. Role players at home play better. And I think the second part of the (help) rotations is: Why we lost here was second-chance points. It was way more possessions for them than us. And we have to avoid that. And those young guys they have off their bench can really offensive rebound. So your rotations aren’t just about contesting 3s. It’s also about getting a body on somebody.”

Ball-handling help for Murray

Tyus Jones was the biggest surprise of Game 5, giving the Nuggets 14 minutes at backup point guard after having been out of the rotation pretty much his entire time in Denver. He signed a rest-of-season veteran minimum deal in March after the Mavericks bought out his contract.

The idea behind bringing him into an elimination game, suddenly? Usually, when the Nuggets want to help release Murray from full-court pressure, they have Gordon bring the ball up the court, and they run Murray off a pin-down or another off-ball screen to get him a catch in the flow of the offense. But with no Gordon, Adelman had to get creative to find help for Murray.

“I just felt like we got Tyus for his ball-handling,” he said. “He’s a point guard. And I think in this series, with the pressure, he allowed Jamal to get off the ball a little bit more. And we felt like, because Tyus was playing, I really felt he needed a roller. And I think when Jonas (Valanciunas) rolls with Tyus when they’ve played together in the past, it opens things up for other people.”