But as coach David Adelman points out, the timing of Jaden McDaniels’ viral insult was a little ironic.

McDaniels was not afraid to stir the pot Monday night after the Timberwolves stole Game 2 of their first-round playoff series from the Nuggets. Minnesota’s 25-year-old wing called out Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray and several other players by name for being easy marks. “They’re all bad defenders,” he declared.

Indeed, Denver’s defense ranked 21st in the regular season at 116, a bottom-10 finish for the second consecutive year. But Minnesota has failed to consistently take advantage of it through two games, despite McDaniels’ smack talk.

“We’ve gotten really lazy as a society. What����ap our defensive rating in this series?” Adelman asked reporters Wednesday after the Nuggets finished practice.

It����ap 109 points allowed per 100 possessions — 102 in 67 minutes when Jokic and Murray have shared the court.

“OK,” Adelman said. “Next.”

Denver’s defense became a national talking point after the attention-grabbing quote from McDaniels. It was convenient talk show fodder. And it wasn’t completely without merit: Jokic and Murray generally have a reputation for being subpar defenders at their respective positions — Jokic as a big man who doesn’t protect the rim, Murray as a guard who struggles to stop the ball. The majority of their effort is devoted to offense, where they’re one of the savviest and most talented duos in the NBA. Opponents try to force them, in turn, to defend pick-and-rolls and other actions.

“All teams do this in the playoffs,” as Adelman said himself between the first two games of the series. “You’re either hunting a matchup, or you’re trying to get the other team’s best offensive players as tired as possible.”

But the Nuggets didn’t lose Game 2 at home because of their defense. In large part, they lost Game 2 because Jokic and Murray weren’t good enough … offensively.

Sounds backwards, doesn’t it?

“I think that defensively, we’ve been pretty good,” Christian Braun said. “There were some spots where we could’ve played better. We made some mistakes, I think late (in the) game, that we don’t typically make. But we’re not too worried about comments, what other people are saying.”

“I can’t wait for his podcast,” Adelman added when reacting to McDaniels’ take.

Two portions of the game stand out upon review. The first is a stretch of the second quarter, when the Wolves were erasing a 19-point deficit. Their comeback started with an 11-0 run when Jokic was on the bench, taking his usual breather, but Denver still wielded a 10-point lead with 7:30 to go in the half.

Jokic had checked back in. Rudy Gobert, who played outstanding 1-on-1 defense against him, was out of the game with three fouls, not be seen again until the second half. Minnesota was playing a smaller, five-out lineup with Julius Randle and Naz Reid in frontcourt. That unit did inherently cause problems for the Nuggets’ defense by stretching them out. It enabled Anthony Edwards and the Wolves to more comfortably put pressure on the rim, move the ball around the perimeter and knock down open 3s.

But it also sacrificed defensive stability against Jokic. Or it should have, at least.

The Nuggets neglected to use their biggest advantage. On four consecutive empty possessions, Jokic never touched the ball in the frontcourt. Denver played fast-paced offense instead, rushing into shots without settling down and involving him. On a fifth possession, Jokic finally got an awkward touch around the elbow but had to tip the ball to himself multiple times while Minnesota went for a steal. He ended up passing out of the chaos. Aaron Gordon missed a corner three. Make it five straight possessions without a paint touch for the MVP center.

By the end of those five possessions, Minnesota had transformed a double-digit deficit into a lead. Jokic got a paint touch on the next trip and scored easily. He posted up Randle the possession after that, waited for a second defender to collapse then kicked out to Murray for an open 3-pointer. When the Nuggets ended the half on an 8-0 run, it started with Jokic establishing position deep in the paint for a catch and an easy bucket.

But in total, he only attempted four shots — one of them from deep — in his 8.5 second-quarter minutes against a lineup that couldn’t guard him. That much was obvious in the second half, when Gobert was sidelined by foul trouble again. Denver adjusted by slowing down and feeding Jokic more. He was a more willing aggressor. He scored 12 easy points during a 14-5 run, as if to accentuate the missed opportunities from that earlier stint.

Then came the fourth-quarter drought. Game 2 ended on a 19-9 Timberwolves run, the crux of which happened from the 8:20 to 1:20 mark. In those seven minutes, Denver’s only made field goal was a transition dunk by Braun when Randle fell asleep getting back on defense after a free throw.

Jokic and Murray combined to miss 10 consecutive shots. They spammed the two-man game against Minnesota’s two best defenders, McDaniels and Gobert. Jokic screened for Murray. Murray screened for Jokic, inverting the pick-and-roll — a trick that very few tandems have the skill-set to pull off. By using Jokic as the ball-handler, Denver can make an elite defensive center like Gobert guard in a way he’s not accustomed to — fighting over screens. The coverage decisions can become trickier for a defense.

But Jokic was sloppy. Not as precise as usual. On one inverted pick-and-roll with Bruce Brown as the screener, Donte DiVincenzo (Brown’s defender) stepped up to show, before Jokic had dribbled around the screen. Brown read the defense and slipped toward the rim instead of holding his screen — the right play. He was open. But Jokic had the ball poked away by DiVincenzo before he could make the pass, forcing him to reset. The possession ended with Jokic cutting to receive a pass from Brown, then missing a contested layup with Gobert in pursuit.

On another possession, McDaniels navigated an initial screen from Jokic successfully to stay glued to Murray. The point guard gave the ball to Jokic and screened for him, flowing into the second action. Jokic rejected the screen and leveraged it to create an open driving lane to his left. But Gobert again stuck to his hip just well enough to make Jokic’s lefty layup attempt difficult. Jokic missed it and fell on the baseline in the process, perhaps trying to sell a foul. It led to a 5-on-4  transition push for Minnesota. An easy dunk.

Other times, the Nuggets generated open 3s but simply missed. They ran an after-timeout play in which Murray dribbled to his left around two screens and got free of McDaniels, only to clank the shot from one of his favorite spots on the floor. Jokic came off a pin-down from Braun to catch on the right wing — again making Gobert chase him around a screen — but air-balled the 3-pointer.

And Gobert was up to the task of guarding Jokic in isolation when the Nuggets decided to clear out on a handful of clutch possessions. Jokic moved the French giant into the paint on one, but he front-rimmed a hook shot that he usually makes, leading to an awkward, ricocheting long rebound and a fast-break dunk the other way.

In those seven minutes, the Timberwolves outscored Denver 12-3. Four of those points were in transition — directly resulting from Jokic’s missed shots. Another two points were scored by Gobert when he bullied Jokic out of the way for an offensive rebound. Aside from those three dunks, the Wolves shot 2-for-10 during their own run to take over the game by four.

The Nuggets got enough stops to win. Their set defense didn’t fail them. Their offensive execution, shot-making and rebounding did.

The loss was punctuated by two uncharacteristically bad decisions on offense — one by Jokic with the ball in his hands, the other by Murray with the ball in his.

So naturally, their defense became the center of attention afterward.

“This is just a part of the rivalry,” Braun said. “I think that’s just part of what comes with it. I don’t think (the comments) caught anybody off-guard. He’s kind of speaking his truth and what he believes. We’ll allow them to do that. We kind of want to take care of our own things. … You shouldn’t need a fire lit under you in the playoffs.”

Indifference was the Nuggets’ overarching tone as they prepared for Game 3 on Thursday (7:30 p.m. MT) in Minneapolis. Even so, it was clear enough that McDaniels’ quote had been posted on a bulletin board somewhere in Ball Arena.

“They’ve just been saying a lot. All season. All series,” said Cam Johnson, who was one of the players named by McDaniels. “So let them talk. Let them get everything they want off their chest. We’re cool with it.”

He was about to release one with 21 seconds left in Monday night’s Game 2 of another captivating Nuggets-Timberwolves playoff series. It was going to tie the score at 115. Minnesota was going to call a timeout to set up the last possession of regulation. Denver was going to defend it out and hope to extend the game to overtime. Rudy Gobert and Jaden McDaniels were going to be walking on thin ice if it got there, with five fouls each. Game 2 was going to meander past midnight.

The floater was the formality before all that. It’s almost as automatic as a layup for Jokic, especially when the rim protector is out of the picture — and Gobert was. He and McDaniels were stuck behind the play after a pristine pocket pass from Jamal Murray in the pick-and-roll. Anthony Edwards was the low man, contesting the shot for Minnesota. Helplessly, in all likelihood. Nuggets coach David Adelman said earlier this month that he would rather see Jokic shoot a floater over Victor Wembanyama’s 8-foot wingspan than shoot free throws with a game on the line. Edwards was an ant in comparison.

But Jokic balked. Halfway into his shooting motion, after the ball was reared back over his head, after his left foot had levitated off the ground, he reconsidered. Christian Braun was open in the dunker spot. Jokic lowered the ball and passed. Braun caught it low. The Wolves converged immediately. They fouled him under the basket.

Braun missed a free throw. Denver’s opportunity for a 2-0 series lead slipped away.

Jokic’s floater is still hanging in the air, in the imaginations of Nuggets fans. In his, too.

“I should definitely have taken that floater,” Jokic said after the series-tying 119-114 loss.

Braun volunteered to take the blame as well. Needing both free throws to tie the game, he split the pair, missing the first one. He was a 78.2% foul shooter in the regular season.

“You don’t have time to dwell on it,” Braun said. “I think I’m gonna be in that position again, and next time, I’ll step up and knock them down. It sucks. It’s not the whole game. But I feel like I make that free throw, and we’re in a lot better spot. So, kind of gotta take that one on the chin. That’s on me. And like I said, I’m gonna be in more pressure spots going forward, so I’m excited for those moments.”

“Rimmed out,” Nuggets coach David Adelman added. “That happens in the NBA. You’re gonna have moments you don’t want to remember. That����ap a tough moment for CB after playing such a good game. He was all over the place in this game. Has so much responsibility on both sides of the ball. So I feel for CB.”

Jokic and Murray combined to miss seven consecutive shots during clutch time as the Timberwolves seized control, led by Gobert’s sturdy defense against Jokic in the post. Denver’s three-time MVP center shot a 1-for-8 clip in the 20 minutes he shared the floor with Gobert in Game 2. He scored 20 of his 24 points when Gobert was trapped on the bench by foul trouble.

His most aggressive stretch of the game was a four-minute stint in the third quarter, when the Timberwolves couldn’t find an answer for Jokic between Naz Reid and a switching McDaniels. Jokic scored 12 of Denver’s points during a quick 14-5 run.

He was uncharacteristically out of rhythm the other 36 minutes he played, often hesitating to attack as a scorer. It all culminated with his abrupt decision to pass up his best shot, at the end of a 1-for-7 fourth quarter.

“I thought I had (Braun). Ant kind of stepped up and jumped up in the air. I thought I had a pass,” Jokic said. “… We had two free throws, so it’s not a bad ending. But I definitely should have took that floater.”

“You always want him to shoot that shot,” Adelman said. “But he sees what he sees out there. He’s playing. And if he sees his teammate open, he’s gonna make that play. … I trust the best player in the world to make the decisions he makes. He saw CB. … The decisions he makes in a game are always unselfish. They’re always for the right reasons. And I trust CB to make those free throws.”

Denver’s wayward finish to the game was also stamped by a questionable decision on the ensuing possession. Julius Randle made a pair of free throws to push Minnesota’s lead to 117-114, leaving the Nuggets with one last chance at a game-tying shot. But Murray didn’t hunt the 3-pointer. He slithered inside the arc for a midrange attempt instead, sealing the result with a miss that would have only cut the deficit back to one. He defended his decision to go for two afterward.

“We’re down three. We just need a bucket,” Murray said. “We have a timeout. I mean, if I hit the shot, they inbound it. They had Rudy and somebody else out there. We could have fouled them. He makes one, maybe. We call timeout. I mean, I have to make the shot for it to go well. So that was the problem. I didn’t make it.”

Meanwhile on Minnesota’s end?

“I was happy he took it,” Edwards said.

And equally happy when Jokic declined to take his floater.

The Nuggets collapsed against the Timberwolves. Again. They squandered a 19-point second quarter lead. It represented their biggest playoff meltdown since Minnesota erased a 20-point advantage two years ago.

The Timberwolves are the definition of annoying. Coach Chris Finch turns officiating into the Lincoln-Douglas debates. And their players relish talking smack.

Monday night, however, the team that cried wolf left the Nuggets with a bloody lip and crooked nose.

The postgame scene eloquently explained why this series has become greasy, if not spicy.

Aaron Gordon sat at his locker twirling the tape from his finger, unable to wrap his head around a stunning 119-114 defeat.

Christian Braun frowned into space, upset over missing a free throw with 19.1 seconds left.

And Jamal Murray looked spent, trying to make sense of how the Nuggets raced out to a 44-25 cushion and dissolved when it mattered most.

Down the hall, the Timberwolves popped off like they found the cheat code for Nikola Jokic. They blabbered about the Nuggets in a way more suited for a prize fight than a first-round NBA playoff series.

Just listen to how Jaden McDaniels described their offensive awakening over the final three quarters.

“Go after Jokic, Jamal, all the bad defenders. Tim Hardaway, Cam Johnson, Aaron Gordon, the whole team, just go at them,” said McDaniels on the key to Minnesota’s attack. “Yeah, they’re all bad defenders.”

OK, this just got good. No more pretense. Or political correctness. This rivalry — the teams are 15-15 over their last 30 games — is on full volume and out in the open for everyone to see.

If the Nuggets don’t respond with vigor to McDaniels’ evisceration, they don’t deserve to play for a championship, let alone win one.

Given a chance to step on Minnesota’s throat, the Nuggets choked. Simple as that. Their bodies were too tired. The shots too short. Typically after a Denver-Minnesota postseason game, talk centers on a center. It did again.

Just not the one we expected.

Instead of dissecting another unicorn performance from Jokic, the discussion focused on how Minnesota’s Rudy Gobert won the one-on-one matchup.

Jokic scored two points in the fourth quarter, unable to solve Gobert’s range and length. It was a running theme.

Gobert held the three-time MVP to 1-for-8 shooting and four points over 20-plus minutes when he was on the floor. Jokic scored 20 points against everyone else, including wearing out Naz Reid for 12 in the third quarter, a strategy he should have employed sooner.

“(Gobert) is a really good defensive player. He makes you make tough shots. He’s big, has reach,” Jokic said. “He can take away any kind of angle or position.”

Gobert also had motivation. He has not defended Jokic well in the playoffs, but Game 2 offered a chance to make critics swallow their tongues.

As Anthony Edwards explained, “Everybody’s gonna say this and that about Rudy. People don’t understand what he means to us. They don’t want to lay the ball up around him. They don’t want to go at him.”

Before the game, the NBA announced Spurs star Victor Wembanyama as the Defensive Player of the Year. No surprise.

Gobert failing to finish in the top three in the voting, behind Chet Holmgren and Ausur Thompson, did not sit well with Finch.

“It’s a joke,” Finch said. “I thought it was incredibly disrespectful. It’s just laughable.”

Gobert tried to deflect the voting as a reason for Monday’s effort. He scored two points and had five fouls, but rarely has a box score been so misleading.

Gobert made everything hard. He turned every trip into the paint into an episode of “Naked and Afraid,” uncomfortable, awkward and desperate.

When the Nuggets broke out in the first quarter, they should have finished on cruise control. Instead, they ran into a 7-foot-1-inch high retaining wall on the back stretch.

They got Gobert-ed.

“I know who I am. It’s not the first time I have been disrespected. Probably not the last. I just have to be myself,” Gobert said of the awards voting. “If they want to disrespect greatness and take it for granted, sooner or later they will realize the impact.”

During clutch time over multiple possessions, Jokic was thwarted. The last two minutes were capsulized by Jokic eschewing a floater for a pass to Braun. What should have been a bucket turned into a single free throw.

“I was lucky. I am not a top 3 defender so I shouldn’t be able to do that,” Gobert quipped.

The easy narrative told through blue and yellow-tinted glasses is that the Nuggets missed shots they normally make. Especially late. There are not many examples where Jokic and Murray clank 10 of 12 shots in the fourth.

But this stumble felt more personal, more damning.

The Nuggets bench was shallow, too dependent on Tim Hardaway Jr. and Bruce Brown. Jonas Valanciunas provided nothing. And Spencer Jones is a functional piece, but not someone capable of shifting momentum as Denver was torched in non-Jokic minutes, including an 11-0 second quarter run.

The truth is the Nuggets got cute, became intoxicated by their rocket launch. Every shot became an opportunity to get into transition. The problem is they stopped rebounding. They were outscored 20-3 on second chance points.

In January on a back-to-back, that is an effort statistic. Monday, it was the wrong mindset.

“We have to change ours,” coach David Adelman said.

The Nuggets lost because they were slow to adapt defensively in the second quarter. They wilted because they could not get anyone hot over the final 10 minutes when Jokic and Murray lost their aim.

These Nuggets are still good enough to dismiss the Timberwolves. But Monday, they folded.

They did not just get beat. They got punked.

How they respond Thursday will tell us everything we need to know about their toughness.

Jaden McDaniels isn’t worried about the illusion of respect. Not in this rivalry. He wanted all the smoke Monday night after a 119-114 win over the Nuggets. The Timberwolves stormed into Denver and split the first two games of a best-of-seven playoff rubber match, and they howled with laughter on their way out.

Stone-faced, with deadly seriousness, McDaniels called out Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray and the rest of the Nuggets for their poor defense.

“Go at Jokic. Jamal. All the bad defenders,” he said when asked about Minnesota’s approach on offense. “Tim Hardaway. Cam Johnson. Aaron Gordon. The whole team. Just go at them.

“They’re all bad defenders.”

Denver held the Wolves to 105 points in a Game 1 win but coughed up a 19-point lead in Game 2. Anthony Edwards led Minnesota with a 30-point double-double.

“They don’t got people that can defend the rim,” McDaniels said, “and if (Jokic) is there, we’re still more athletic than them. Just gotta be able to finish.”

Nuggets starters Gordon and Christian Braun, when asked about McDaniels’ trash talk, both shrugged and said they weren’t concerned by it. This is the third playoff series between Denver and Minnesota in the last four years. Before Game 2, Timberwolves coach Chris Finch accused the Nuggets of flopping in the series opener.

The Wolves have targeted Murray on switches and forced him and Jokic to defend in pick-and-rolls early in the series, as is standard practice for Denver’s opponents. McDaniels took aim at the Nuggets’ better defenders as well in his postgame comments, though.

The Nuggets have now lost four of their last six home playoff games against Minnesota.

“I’ve been around these guys a long time,” coach David Adelman said. “They understand what this is. They’re disappointed right now. But they know what they’re capable of. We’ve been in a lot of series like this. We’ve seen 1-1 quite a bit. So we’ll react to it positively.”

Denver attempted 33 free throws in a 116-105 series-opening win, led by Murray’s 16-for-16 game. Minnesota attempted 19 free throws as a team.

Finch, a former Nuggets assistant coach, was miffed during his postgame press conference. When asked again for his perspective on the disparity with the benefit of hindsight, he took aim at not only the referees but the Nuggets for the taboo act of intentionally trying to draw fouls.

“One guy shot 16 free throws. What do you want me to say? They weren’t all fouls. Some of them were fouls,” Finch said Monday night. “The league is in a place right now where you draw the contact (and) when you spill away, you get rewarded. Guys who try to play through contact, that first level of contact, and stay with the drive and all that, they tend not to be rewarded. Fouls are rewarded up the floor. They’re not rewarded in and around the paint. … It’s really hard to defend sometimes, and especially now, guys have figured out if they just lower the shoulder on you and move you out of the way, you get all the advantage. So, not sure how to answer that to our guys sometimes when they get frustrated. But we’ve gotta do a better job.”

Finch was almost done with his answer. Almost. But he had one more comment to add.

“And maybe we’ve gotta start flopping, too,” he finished.

Nuggets coach David Adelman defended Murray during his pregame comments.

“I mean, there was a flagrant foul; he shot three free throws. There was a technical foul; he shot a free throw. So it was 12,” Adelman said. “And he got fouled. So it’s the playoffs. Everybody politicks after games, but let’s at least list out the 16 free throws and what actually happened. This isn’t one of those games where he’s just walking to the line. It was playing through a lot of physicality. Multiple guys getting into him. It’s what they do. They toe the line. And the fouls early allowed them to argue the point that the fouls were 4-0 to start, and then you start seeing a reaction (from the officials).

“So that stuff happens in these games; they’re so physical. It could happen the other way tonight. It’s just the way it is. But from what I saw, flagrants and technicals are not part of the flow of the game, in my opinion. But we’ll move on.”

The flagrant referenced by Adelman was a close-out by Jaden McDaniels into the landing space of Murray on a 3-point attempt, which is technically part of the flow of the game. But it was verified as a foul by the officials via replay review — they initially called it a common foul then upgraded it to a flagrant.

In addition to those three, Murray shot one free throw after a technical foul that was called on McDaniels for shoving Nikola Jokic in the back. Then in the fourth quarter, Julius Randle committed an away-from-the-play foul for trying to grapple with Aaron Gordon before an inbound pass, resulting in another Murray free throw unrelated to his activity.

“I do think sometimes when you watch film, you just say, ‘Yeah, that guy got fouled,'” Adelman said. “There’s nights, believe me, when we play Shai (Gilgeous-Alexander) or somebody who shoots a lot of free throws, I don’t go back to the clips and say, ‘I can’t believe you got all those calls.’ I go, ‘Why are we fouling him so much?’”

Aside from Murray, the leaders in individual free throw attempts for Game 1 were Denver’s Aaron Gordon (eight), Minnesota’s Anthony Edwards (seven), Minnesota’s Rudy Gobert (five) and Minnesota’s McDaniels (four). Jokic went to the foul line only once; Randle went only twice for the Wolves.

“Julius is not a flopper. Ant’s not a flopper. Those guys are physical drivers,” Finch said. “They play through the first line of contact a lot. And a lot of times, that point of contact, if you were to spill away, he gets a foul. But if he keeps going, then they take a ‘play on’ mentality. The level of contact and the legality of the guarding position is exactly the same.”

MVP (and First Team All-NBA)

• 1. Shai Gilgeous Alexander, Thunder
• 2. Nikola Jokic, Nuggets
• 3. Victor Wembanyama, Spurs
• 4. Luka Doncic, Lakers
• 5. Cade Cunningham, Pistons

This is a safe space, Nuggets fans. You can let it all out. I’ll be your punching bag if it makes you feel better. But I’ll just remind you I was part of the minority when I voted for Jokic over SGA last year. () And I’ll direct you to Jokic’s own assessment of his 2025-26 season, when I asked him recently how it compares to the previous year, when he said he was “playing the best basketball of my life.”

“I think for me, it was a little bit inconsistent,” he said this time. “Just because injury, and then it was the first time I was coming back from (an) injury. … I think before injury, I played really, really high-level basketball. And since injury, it’s so-so.”

That was on March 25, with three weeks remaining in the regular season. You can argue he had turned a corner by then — though you might have to ignore his 10 turnovers in a loss to the tanking Grizzlies a week earlier — but the point is that for at least two and a half months of the season, Jokic simply wasn’t a relevant enough part of the MVP conversation. A hyperextended left knee sidelined him in January. His first few weeks back on the court hindered him in February, not to mention a flare-up of discomfort in his right wrist that he was determined to play through. He was a pedestrian 3-point shooter for the last 33 games after his return from the knee injury. He had a tendency to play loose with the ball, finishing with a turnover rate 2.5% higher than last season and a worse assist-to-turnover ratio. I would not describe this as his most active defensive season either, in part due to his coaching staff’s inclination to save his energy for the playoffs (a worthwhile trade-off).

If it sounds like I’m just a hater ragging on a Denver sports icon, please keep in mind that my ballot still reflects the stance that Jokic was the second-best player in the NBA this season �����辱�ٱ���those months. That’s how automatically impactful his presence on the court is, even when he “struggles.” But the margins narrowed this season as Gilgeous-Alexander continued to improve as both a scorer and playmaker. Averaging 31.1 points on 55.3% shooting from the field and 66.5% true shooting (within 0.5% of Jokic) on a guard’s shot diet is ridiculous. That’s the efficiency of a 7-footer whose only shot attempts are pick-and-roll lobs and other easy chances around the rim. Consider also that SGA’s burden as a shot creator was heightened this year by wingman Jalen Williams missing 50 games, and that OKC still had a 121.5 offensive rating with him on the floor (11.1 points per 100 better than without him).

I maintain that Jokic is the best basketball player on the planet because his versatility at the center position is revolutionary and his highs are higher than anybody else’s (at least for now, until Victor Wembanyama catches up). But Gilgeous-Alexander’s metronomic consistency made him the best and most valuable player to his team this regular season.

Second Team All-NBA

• Kawhi Leonard, Clippers
• Jaylen Brown, Celtics
• Donovan Mitchell, Cavaliers
• Jamal Murray, Nuggets
• Tyrese Maxey, 76ers

I’ll make a few very brief notes on the rest of my ballot as I go. Leonard was originally penciled in as my fifth-place MVP vote and last First-Team All-NBA selection, until an arbitrator unexpectedly ruled in favor of Cunningham being eligible for awards despite not playing 65 games. Leonard barely crossed the threshold himself (and Cunningham actually played more minutes), so it’s not like there was some chasm between them in availability. I almost talked myself into keeping Leonard fifth anyway, but Cunningham’s season was unimpeachable. He had an absolutely profound winning impact on a top-seeded team that doesn’t exactly have awesome spacing or secondary shot creation around him.

Props to Murray, who would have been my unofficial seventh-place MVP vote if Doncic and Cunningham had both been deemed ineligible. Even with those two guys allowed on the ballot, the Nuggets guard was comfortably on my Second Team.

Third Team All-NBA

• Chet Holmgren, Thunder
• Jalen Brunson, Knicks
• Kevin Durant, Rockets
• Jalen Johnson, Hawks
• Jalen Duren, Pistons

Coach of the Year

• 1. Joe Mazzulla, Celtics
• 2. JB Bickerstaff, Pistons
• 3. Tiago Splitter, Trail Blazers

This was one of the most difficult awards on the ballot for me this year. There are a ton of coaches around the league right now deserving of recognition. Also strongly considered: San Antonio’s Mitch Johnson, Phoenix’s Jordan Ott, Toronto’s Darko Rajakovic, Charlotte’s Charles Lee, Oklahoma City’s Mark Daigneault and Denver’s David Adelman (54 wins despite all those injuries?). Ultimately leaned Splitter, who had perhaps the most unfavorable situation in the NBA this year, taking over for Chauncey Billups on opening day, and coached the Blazers to the playoffs in a tough Western Conference. Will Portland’s cost-cutting new owner pay him a wage commensurate to his accomplishments?

Most Improved Player

• 1. Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Hawks
• 2. Jalen Duren, Pistons
• 3. Collin Gillespie, Suns

Gillespie didn’t make the cut as a finalist, but would you have ever guessed when he was on a two-way contract in Denver that he would someday break a franchise’s single-season record for most 3-pointers? He’s a point guard by nature, but he also was 47.4% on catch-and-shoot 3s this season. In general, he handled his increased responsibility in Phoenix with incredible poise, starting 58 games for a surprise playoff team after having played only 57 in his NBA career before 2025-26.

Sixth Man of the Year

• 1. Keldon Johnson, Spurs
• 2. Jaime Jaquez, Heat
• 3. Tim Hardaway Jr., Nuggets

Three worthy candidates in a year without an obvious winner. Johnson’s energy is inextricable from his team’s identity in addition to his statistical contributions off the bench, so he gets the nod from me in a squeaker. Also strongly considered: Minnesota’s Ayo Dosunmu, OKC’s Ajay Mitchell and New York’s Mitchell Robinson, until I realized he didn’t meet the 65-game rule.

Clutch Player of the Year

• 1. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Thunder
• 2. Anthony Edwards, Timberwolves
• 3. Jamal Murray, Nuggets

SGA’s likely win in this category will reinforce his MVP candidacy. He was fantastic in the biggest moments all season.

Defensive Player of the Year (and First Team All-Defense)

• 1. Victor Wembanyama, Spurs
• 2. Chet Holmgren, Thunder
• 3. Rudy Gobert, Timberwolves
• Ausar Thompson, Pistons
• Scottie Barnes, Raptors

Second Team All-Defense

• Cason Wallace, Thunder
• Derrick White, Celtics
• OG Anunoby, Knicks
• Stephon Castle, Spurs
• Amen Thompson, Rockets

Rookie of the Year (and First Team All-Rookie)

• 1. Kon Knueppel, Hornets
• 2. Cooper Flagg, Mavericks
• 3. VJ Edgecombe, 76ers
• Dylan Harper, Spurs
• Ace Bailey, Jazz

I’ve seen the school of thought that Flagg should be bestowed this honor because he’s likely to have the better overall career than Knueppel. That may well be true, but Rookie of the Year is about this year, not the next 10 to 20. This was deservedly a tight race nonetheless, and I have no qualms with Flagg winning if that indeed comes to pass. But for a rookie to lead the NBA in 3s is truly remarkable, and Knueppel’s sharpshooting ability had ripple effects across the overall execution of Charlotte’s offense en route to the Play-In Tournament. His poor performance in the Play-In is not supposed to be counted against him, and it certainly was not on my ballot.

Second Team All-Rookie

• Cedric Coward, Grizzlies
• Maxime Raynaud, Kings
• Derik Queen, Pelicans
• Ryan Kalkbrenner, Hornets
• Jeremiah Fears, Pelicans

Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and San Antonio’s Victor Wembanyama are the other two finalists. Gilgeous-Alexander is considered a heavy favorite to win the award for a second straight season. Jokic was the runner-up to him in 2025.

The winner is usually announced early in the second round of the NBA playoffs.

Jokic, 31, joined Russell Westbrook and Oscar Robertson as the only players to average a triple-double for an entire season last year. Now he has accomplished the feat twice in a row, after averaging 27.7 points per game and leading the league in rebounds (12.9) and assists (10.7). If he finishes first or second place, he’ll join Bill Russell and Larry Bird as the only players to with six straight top-two seasons. He has won three times in his 11-year NBA career.

Jokic secured his eligibility for the accolade by playing his 65th game on the last night of the regular season, narrowly meeting the NBA’s quota to appear on awards ballots. He missed four weeks in January after hyperextending his left knee and suffering a bone bruise.

The league unveiled the three leading vote getters for all of its individual awards Sunday. Two other Nuggets were recognized. Tim Hardaway Jr. is a finalist for Sixth Man of the Year alongside Miami’s Jaime Jaquez and San Antonio’s Keldon Johnson. Jamal Murray is up for Clutch Player of the Year against Gilgeous-Alexander and Minnesota’s Anthony Edwards.

“I’m tired of waiting,” the Nuggets guard shared with nobody in particular on his way into the locker room. “It’s (expletive) playoff time, mother-(expletives).”

It might as well have been a thesis statement for his entire team’s headspace. The Nuggets live a charmed life, boasting the longest active streak of NBA playoff appearances in the Western Conference, and it can cause the dog days of the regular season to feel burdensome. Their annual struggle is to resist auto-pilot — especially at the end of the floor that requires more effort. Combine their human instinct and an unusually contagious injury bug this season, and the result was a bottom-10 defense in the NBA for the second consecutive year.

It didn’t show in Game 1 against the Timberwolves.

In what felt like an upside down start to the playoffs, the best 3-point shooting team in the league overcame a 1-for-17 second half with disciplined guarding. Braun took the lead on Edwards, and Denver held an opponent to 105 points or fewer for just the 15th time this year.

“Which is something we’ve been crying about the whole season,” Spencer Jones said, laughing. “So to be able to do it first game of the playoffs shows the intensity we can play at, and play at it consistently.”

The Nuggets shot 43.7% from the field and 27.8% from deep, their second-lowest clip of the year in a win. They were 15-22 in the regular season when they shot any worse than 49% overall, a sign of the strain they put on their historic offense nightly.

Defensive stops were manufactured up and down the lineup. Bruce Brown was Denver’s amplifier, compiling five steals off the bench in his first playoff game as a Nugget since the 2023 championship clincher. “Some guys might get mad at me, but I think he’s our most effective on-ball defender,” Jamal Murray said. “When he comes in, he’s up underneath guys. He’s not even fouling. And if he does foul, it’s stopping them from getting two points.”

Nuggets coach David Adelman praised him for “toeing the line that you need to toe in the playoffs.”

Aaron Gordon was predictably formidable as the primary matchup on Julius Randle, who never established a groove while scoring an inefficient 16 points. The Nuggets allowed less than a point per possession in 29 minutes with Gordon on the floor.

When he got in early foul trouble, Jones and Cam Johnson helped weather the storm against Minnesota’s offensive-minded fours, Randle and Naz Reid. Johnson displayed his understated versatility as an isolation defender throughout the series opener, forcing Randle and Edwards into tough shots despite mainly taking the Jaden McDaniels assignment. “Trying to bother the handle a little bit,” Johnson said. “Don’t let them get super rhythmic with it, because that’s when guys get comfy and hit shots.”

Nikola Jokic played his vintage up-to-touch ball screen coverage, giving Braun time to recover to Edwards when Minnesota wanted to put Jokic in the action (which was often). His defensive effort has been justifiably scrutinized at times this season, but the context is crucial. Denver’s new coaching regime — Adelman as the head man, Jared Dudley as his defensive coordinator — prefers to play the long game.

Their philosophy from the start was to devise a scheme that could help save Jokic’s legs for playoff basketball. They wanted him hanging out around the paint more during the regular season, despite his shortcomings as a rim protector. They didn’t want him to overexert himself with too much aggressive pick-and-roll defense, like he has typically played over the years to capitalize on his quick hands and high IQ. They’ve put him in a drop more often, or at the bottom of a zone, or they’ve they sought out cross-matches against non-shooters. “I don’t want him having him to go guard these guards on the wings, in rotations,” Dudley told The Post early in the season.

It was all in anticipation of this. Physical and mental fatigue played a factor in Denver’s last two season-ending losses, both second-round Game 7s. The sense around the team this year is that Jokic feels fresh. Adelman stumped for him after Game 1, pointing out unprompted that Jokic “was up (the floor) in pick-and-roll, like, 65 times. I know he gets killed defensively. But man, he’s in good shape.”

And at the center of this “grimy” series-opening win was Braun, who shouldered the Ant matchup that he’s grown all too familiar with in recent years. Edwards led the Timberwolves in scoring (22), but he looked nothing like his usual self in a labored 7-for-19 performance. Part of that may have been due to lingering runner’s knee; he had an opportunity to attack Murray in space on a late fourth-quarter possession, but as the Nuggets loaded up with help behind Murray, Edwards settled for a deep 3-point attempt instead of driving and kicking to an open teammate.

Part of it was Braun, who has the liberty to switch strategies on his own from possession to possession, Adelman said. The fourth-year guard, who turned 25 the day before the playoffs, has been growing more comfortable playing on his left ankle in the second half of the season. It still gets swollen and requires extra postgame treatment, residual effects of the ligament damage caused by a severe sprain last November.

“I thought CB was great,” Adelman said. “He’s guarding one of the best players in the world. … With Ant, you have to have somebody guarding him that will change up their own coverages sometimes. Take responsibility to not give him the same look every time. … You can trust CB that what he’s doing, there’s a reason for it. I realized this last year in the playoffs, when he really had an enormous role guarding the better players with (James) Harden then on to Shai (Gilgeous-Alexander). You can trust him. Not all players are like that.”

Braun emerged as one of the Nuggets’ best Ant defenders during the 2024 playoffs, when Kentavious Caldwell-Pope struggled in the matchup. He left Denver in free agency that offseason, leaving a job opening in the starting lineup. Braun seized it, becoming the team’s lead defensive guard. He’s taken on most of the NBA’s premiere ball-handlers over the last two years, experiencing ups and downs as an over-screen defender in pick-and-roll. But he has grown accustomed to the mental resilience it takes to guard superstars in a league where good offense tends to trump good defense. He’s startlingly honest when he feels an opponent “kicked my (butt),” as Harden did in Game 1 of the playoffs last season.

“It was probably his best game of the series,” Braun recalled Saturday. “Then I kind of learned and I adjusted. I think in Game 7, obviously we took care of business and did a really good job on him. I think as the series went on, we kept me on him more and more. … I’m gonna learn what Ant does throughout the series, and it’s a series for a reason.”

Which is all to say, Braun and the Nuggets know they’re in no place to take a victory lap after one game of good defense.

Harden had 32 points and 11 assists in that Game 1. He fizzled out by Game 7, scoring seven points on eight shots.

The opposite trajectory is just as feasible, if Braun allows Edwards to get too comfortable on his knee as this series develops.

“Just be annoying the whole game,” Jokic said.

The entire roster took that edict to heart in Game 1, and the Timberwolves buckled under the pressure. McDaniels shoved Jokic in the back and picked up a dead ball technical foul. Randle failed to hustle back into the play after Denver snatched an offensive rebound on a 45-foot heave with two minutes left. Gordon punished him for his poor effort by getting wide open for a dunk. Then Randle committed two frustration fouls in an 11-second span as the game spiraled out of control for Minnesota. Wolves coach Chris Finch criticized his team’s lack of composure.

It stemmed from a Denver defense that had been hibernating for months, counting on its ability to suddenly jolt awake in April. It’s a risky blueprint, but it worked in Game 1.

“They tried to bully us a little bit in the front. We knew that was gonna happen. That’s how this team tries to get under our skin,” Jones said. “So for us to match it from beginning to end and never give in, and see them be the ones to kind of complain to the refs more than we were — it shows how focused we were.”

He jitter-bugged Donte DiVincenzo. He drop stepped Ayo Dosunmu. He left Naz Reid in the rearview. Even when he missed shots, he made the Timberwolves miserable.

Instead of talking about winning, they resorted to whining.

“Well, the 16 free throws for (Jamal) Murray is a head scratcher,” Timberwolves coach Chris Finch said.

Really? That was the takeaway after the Nuggets throttled the Timberwolves over the final three quarters in a 116-105 Game 1 victory at Ball Arena?

Finch is a bright man. So it should come as no surprise that he began playing mind games by working the refs. But shouldn’t his guys just work harder guarding Murray without making contact?

“We played really good defense on him I thought. He initiates the contact, spills away and then he gets rewarded for it,” Finch said. “And (Nikola) Jokic does the same thing.”

Oh, here we go again.

Complaining about postseason whistles is like The Masters: a spring tradition unlike any other.

Word of the quip clearly had filtered into the Nuggets’ locker room before they met the media. Coach David Adelman provided a defense of Murray without being asked.

“He is special. He drew a lot of fouls. Because he got fouled,” Adelman said. “A lot.”

Coaches go to the podium and become the heckler in the bleachers, lobbing shots over foul shots. The motivation, left unsaid, is two-fold. Get into the officials’ ears. And try to get into a player’s head, in this case, Murray.

The chatter did not test Murray’s patience. More like his intelligence.

“I thought I got fouled on every single one of them. I don’t know what everybody is talking about,” Murray said. “They were real fouls.”

And the friction between these teams remains genuine.

There were multiple technicals. Minnesota’s Jaden McDaniels soured a solid performance with a bush league push of Nikola Jokic in the back. Aaron Gordon provided a death glare to multiple Timberwolves in the subsequent scrum, suggesting he was ready to end anyone who took another cheap shot at the Nuggets’ star.

“It was physical,” said Jokic, who had as many turnovers (three) as points with four minutes remaining in the first half and finished with a triple-double. “There were ups and downs, runs. Whenever we play them, it’s always interesting.”

What made the opener fascinating is that it cemented how much Murray has evolved this season.

Nuggets fans have been waiting for this. Last time, the Nuggets faced the Timberwolves in a playoff game in Denver, he threw heating pads onto the court.

Saturday, he was running hot. And still causing trouble when he was not.

In a season that started with a challenge to prove he was an All-Star, Murray continues to make critics and opposing coaches look like they are full of it.

No more Bubble Jamal. Or playoff Murray. No delineation needed. He is just Jamal Murray, a soon-to-be All-NBA player who showed the Timberwolves why in a performance that was oddly beautiful.

“He has a lot of responsibility with a lot of different people guarding him. They are holding onto his jersey. This is a challenge,” Aldeman said. “He is so mentally strong. He fights through it.”

Hold your nose, Nuggets fans. JM became SGA. And it was glorious.

All of the grousing about reigning Most Valuable Player Shai Gilgeous-Alexander centers on his ability to turn the free-throw line into his own Airbnb.

Saturday, Murray gets a fair whistle and now suddenly he is gaming the system? Come on.

Murray dropped a pair of 50-piece games this season. He attempted five free throws in the first, and six in the last. He plays ethical basketball.

Any other assertion is a misconception. Or desperation (Looking at you coach Finch).

The Timberwolves ran multiple defenders at Murray. They blitzed him when Jokic was in the game. He failed to make a single 3-pointer, missing eight in all. And he finished with 30 because he set a career high in attempts (16) and makes (16) from the charity stripe.

“Irrelevant,” said Murray, when asked if he changes his game based on who is guarding him. “Somebody is chasing me. Somebody’s going to push me. And I get a screen. I score.”

Murray made three throws in the first quarter to keep the Nuggets tethered after a miserable 6-for-22 effort from the field. He converted eight in the second quarter and Denver drew even. And he drained five more after halftime, showing his improvement after failing to ice two games earlier in the season.

“Jamal is amazing. One of the best free-throw shooters in the game,” Jokic said. “When he’s aggressive, going to the rim and the ball is in his hand a lot, we are wholly confident he is going to make those (foul shots).”

He came to life beyond dead-ball moments. When the Nuggets were hanging on without Jokic, Murray sprang loose for a trademark one-handed floater in the third quarter.

And his most important shot, like all his 3s, was a miss. With 1:58 remaining, Murray retrieved a loose ball near half court and heaved a 43-footer as the shot clock expired.

“I was trying to make it,” Murray said.

He did not need it to go in. Just click the rim. As the Timberwolves began transfixed watching the ball, Bruce Brown, who provided a Red Bull jolt in the second quarter on both ends of the floor, grabbed the rebound. He found Murray. And he whipped a one-handed dime to Gordon.

Instead of Minnesota having the ball, down 106-101, the Nuggets led by eight.

That was it. There was no more fight left. The Nuggets won a game that was more paint-by-numbers than Picasso.

It was grimy. Ugly. And it was because of Murray.

Cry wolf somewhere else, coach. Nobody is buying it.

The Nuggets were stunted. Flustered. Worked up.

David Adelman was across midcourt. His protests were only causing more harm. Aaron Gordon was in deep foul trouble. He had just picked up his third of the first quarter, and Adelman had wasted his challenge trying to overturn it. He picked up a technical foul in the process for his indignance. The Timberwolves had brought their 2024 defense to Denver, and they were headed toward a 12-point lead. Nikola Jokic was turning it over. The role players were missing shots.

This all felt reminiscent of that cursed second-round series two years ago, when the Wolves and refs got in the Nuggets’ heads, when Denver lost three of four games at home.

The 2026 Nuggets were ready to take the first punch. They rallied to tie it by halftime, raced ahead in the third quarter, then held on in the fourth for a 116-105 Game 1 win over their rivals Saturday at Ball Arena. They’ve won eight of their last nine playoff Game 1s dating back to their championship run in 2023. Their only series-opening loss in that time was to Minnesota.

“It was the type of playoff game that you love to win because it was kind of ugly,” Adelman said. “… We were up against it right away. And that’s a big thing for a road team to come out, punch the home team in the mouth. That’s what they did after we missed shots. And just the reaction to that, staying together, winning a grimy game, it’s good. We’re gonna have games where we shoot the hell out of it and everything looks pretty, and everybody is gonna say how good we are. There’s no difference. You just win the game. And that’s what the game was tonight.”

Nuggets guard Christian Braun put it more simply after contributing 12 points and eight rebounds.

“When you win and you don’t play well,” he said, “I think that’s a good sign.”

Jamal Murray led the Nuggets with 30 points on a 16-for-16 afternoon at the foul line, shaking off a slow start and a twisted right ankle after Jaden McDaniels closed out into his landing space on an early 3-point attempt. It was his 20th career 30-point playoff game, and he overcame an 0-for-8 outside shooting performance to get there. Jokic added 25 points, 13 rebounds and 11 assists. Their two-man game picked apart Minnesota in the third quarter, generating clean scoring chances on nearly every possession.

Most importantly, Denver’s defense came to bat. It bided time for the offense during the first half, while nerves settled and turnovers slowly dissipated. It sank its teeth in during a 14-0 third-quarter run that broke the game open, holding the Wolves scoreless for more than four straight minutes.

“It was physical. It was ups and downs. Runs,” Jokic said. “… It always is about the runs and how you’re gonna react and how you’re gonna manage those runs. Are you gonna take bad shots, or are you gonna create open looks?”

Anthony Edwards, playing on a wobbly knee, led the Wolves with 22 points, nine rebounds and seven assists. Adelman was pleased with Braun’s defense against the star guard, who said he felt fatigued but healthy in the loss. Rudy Gobert added 17 and 10. Julius Randle struggled to assert himself, needing 16 shots to compile 16 points. He and Edwards combined to shoot 14 for 35. Minnesota coach Chris Finch called Murray’s 16 free throws a “head-scratcher” compared to his team’s 19 attempts.

“Ant was trying to snake. Just get a little tap on the ball and make him fumble it so he has to get back in front. The little details helped our defense a lot,” Murray said. “And for us, that leads to offense. So I felt like when we did make those runs, it was because of those little plays.”

The Wolves have been prone to mental lapses this season, and they bit themselves with one at a critical moment in the series opener. Murray was forced to heave a 45-footer at the shot clock buzzer after having the ball poked away with two minutes left — a rare example of a Nuggets possession that didn’t generate an open shot down the stretch. It should’ve been Minnesota’s ball down five. Instead, Murray’s heave grazed the rim, and the Timberwolves ball-watched, giving up an easy offensive rebound to Bruce Brown.

“I’d be mad if I didn’t hit rim,” Murray said.

Gordon capitalized with an open dunk to punctuate his 17-point, eight-rebound game.

“We know what this is. When Aaron plays, we’re a different team,” Adelman said. “It’s just the bottom line. It’s not the stats. It’s the feel. We feel bigger because we are.”

Peyton Watson was the only inactive player on either team. As he continues to recover from a right hamstring strain that he reaggravated on April 1, the growing sense around the team is that he’ll miss at least a couple more games, a source told The Post.

His absence was a troubling sign for the Nuggets’ bench depth and for their defensive options against Edwards. Adelman said earlier this week that he hoped to start the playoffs with “at least nine guys out there (to) see the rotation, how it works,” then to shorten his rotation throughout the series. With Watson ruled out for Game 1, it wasn’t so simple.

“I’ll say I’m gonna play eight and a half going in,” the first-year coach said before tip. “That’s kind of the way you look at it.”

Spencer Jones was the eighth man, making his playoff debut and checking in for the first time since March 29. The 24-year-old was sidelined by a right hamstring injury of his own late in the regular season, interrupting his momentum right after the Nuggets had found success with him as a quasi-backup center.

They had to rely on him and Cam Johnson at the four through most of the first half Saturday after Gordon got in foul trouble. Both were ready for the task defensively. Johnson put in good work against Randle and Edwards in isolation. Offensively, he had Edwards guarding him, so Denver tested Ant’s off-ball defense by calling a steady diet of plays early for Johnson. He scored 10 of his 12 points before halftime. The other two: a game-sealing floater with 53 seconds to go.

As for the ninth man to complete Adelman’s eight and a half? Jonas Valanciunas played the eight minutes Jokic was off the floor, attempting to match Rudy Gobert in size on the glass. Murray and Johnson staggered with the bench unit. The Timberwolves forced Murray to defend pick-and-rolls while Valanciunas was down the floor in coverage, resulting in a couple of pull-up 3s. But otherwise, Minnesota didn’t have enough reliable shot creation when Edwards and Randle were both off the floor. Murray got into a midrange rhythm during the second quarter, and Denver won the first non-Jokic minutes of the playoffs by seven to find new life.

That stint was a minus-five to start the fourth quarter, prompting Adelman to go back to Jokic with nine minutes left and a seven-point lead. Gobert was impressive in 1-on-1 defense against the three-time MVP most of the day, and he forced the Nuggets to respect him offensively by finishing through contact around the rim.

“If he plays like that,” McDaniels said, “we’re going to win (the series).”

But Jokic delivered a decisive sequence with six minutes remaining after Minnesota had cut it to two. Ayo Dosunmu was amping up the pressure. He handed the ball to Murray on the baseline after scoring, ready to pick him up full-court as the Wolves are fond of doing. After the Nuggets got the ball up, Jokic drained a tough floater over Gobert while getting fouled. He disrupted a pass by Randle at the other end, leading to a steal, then tipped in a missed 3-pointer in transition to put Denver back up 102-95.