Minnesota shook. And the Nuggets looked shaken. They were a no-show for most of Game 3 of their first-round playoff series Thursday, never leading in a 113-96 loss to the Timberwolves.

Starting power forward Aaron Gordon was sidelined by left calf tightness, but his presence might not have mattered. Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray never established any sort of scoring rhythm in the rout. They combined to shoot 12 for 43, scoring 43 points between them, and it took until the second half for a third Nuggets starter to make a shot from the field.

Jokic missed his first six shots. The team missed 16 of its first 18. The Timberwolves foamed at the mouth, eager to back up Jaden McDaniels’ trash talk about Denver’s defense from three days earlier. The Nuggets didn’t appear bothered enough by it. They allowed 40 points in the paint in the first half alone. They scored 39 points total — in and outside of the paint.

David Adelman turned shades of Michael Malone late in the half, seething as he called a timeout after Denver failed to get back on defense after a made shot. He burned through three of his timeouts in a four-minute stretch of the second quarter, as the Nuggets’ defense abandoned them.

It had saved them from getting run out of the gym early — they trailed 25-11 after the opening stanza — but Minnesota’s relentless downhill driving was too much of a problem. Especially with Gordon and Peyton Watson out.

Ayo Dosunmu, one of the most impactful trade deadline acquisitions in the NBA this year, led the Wolves with 25 points and nine assists off the bench. He exposed Denver’s transition defense, forced the Nuggets to collapse with his straight-line speed and finished a flawless 10-for-12 inside the arc. McDaniels exposed the Nuggets on the glass, crashing for four offensive rebounds en route to a 20-point double-double. Rudy Gobert continued to be the most valuable player of the series, keeping Jokic uncomfortable at all times.

He and McDaniels — the two best defenders on either team in this series — have outplayed Denver’s two best offensive players through three contests. That’s been enough for Minnesota to seize a 2-1 lead after trailing by 19 points early in Game 2.

And it was enough on Thursday to compensate for a choppy game from Anthony Edwards, who developed a limp in the fourth quarter after spending most of his evening in foul trouble. He finished with 17 points, five boards and three assists.

The Wolves left the door open for a second-half comeback when Edwards and Julius Randle were both off the court. But Denver failed to cut substantially into a 27-point deficit. It was still 20 after the third quarter. Going to a zone defense slowed Minnesota down further in the fourth, but the Nuggets weren’t generating the shots they’re used to getting automatically.

Christian Braun finished the game with two points and no field goals. Cam Johnson scored six on as many shots. Julian Strawther entered the rotation as Adelman searched for offensive punch, but he missed five of his six attempts from the field.

Zeke Nnaji slid in as a backup center and provided good energy. The Nuggets won his 16 minutes by two. Nobody else finished in the black. Spencer Jones replaced Gordon in the starting lineup and limited Randle, though he added very little offensively. The Nuggets are unsure what Gordon’s status will be for Game 4, which tips off Saturday at 6:30 p.m. MT at Target Center.

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.”

They’re going to Minneapolis in a tied first-round playoff series, 1-1, after blowing a 19-point lead Monday night and dropping Game 2 at home to the Timberwolves, 119-114.

“You get too high,” Tim Hardaway Jr. said, “and you get, I don’t want to say cocky, but feeling yourself.”

Denver’s missed opportunities loomed nightmarish over a 6-0 Timberwolves run that flipped the game in the last five minutes. Nikola Jokic missed short on a contested layup over Rudy Gobert that’s usually automatic for him, the long rebound leading directly into a Minnesota fast break. David Adelman used a timeout to reset and draw up a play, down 110-107. It resulted in an open 3-point attempt for Murray, who missed on an otherwise stellar 6-for-14 night from deep.

The Timberwolves locked up Denver’s patented two-man game. Gobert bullied Jokic out of the way for a put-back dunk to double the lead with two minutes left, highlighting Minnesota’s 20-3 dominance of second-chance points.

Aaron Gordon cashed a triple to cut it to one, but Donte DiVincenzo got free for an answer. It gave Minnesota a 115-111 edge with 1:05 to play. Jokic threw down a dunk over Gobert at the other end to keep the Nuggets within range.

But at the end of a wobbly performance from Jokic, he made a surprising decision that will linger as the biggest what-if of the series so far. With a chance to bury a game-tying floater in the pick-and-roll, he instead passed out of his form at the last second to Christian Braun, who was grounded in the dunker spot, not soaring for an alley-oop. He nonetheless drew a foul. A trip to the line. A chance, maybe, to force overtime.

Not quite. The Timberwolves missed 11 free throws on the night, but Braun’s miss with 19 seconds left just about sealed Denver’s fate. Down three on the next possession, Murray settled for an ill-advised midrange jumper, and the Wolves escaped with a split on the road. They’ve won four of their last six playoff games at Ball Arena.

My NBA awards ballot: MVP, All-NBA, Rookie of the Year votes | Durando

It snapped a 13-game win streak for the Nuggets. They're now 1-5 in their last six Game 2s, dating back to the 2023 NBA Finals.

Anthony Edwards amassed 30 points and 10 rebounds on a shaky knee. Murray matched him in scoring. Jokic finished with 24 points, 15 rebounds and eight assists. He shot 8 for 20.

The first half alone belongs in the annals of instant classics between the Nuggets and Wolves. It packed in all the emotional swings that have characterized the best games between these star-crossed rivals. It included a sequence in which Denver converted three different 4-point plays in a span of four possessions. That wasn't even the weirdest thing that happened. It was late in the first quarter, as the Nuggets were piling on against an underdog that appeared physically limited and emotionally distant.

Edwards was limping around, voluntarily not involving himself in some of Minnesota's possessions. The Wolves were stagnant. The Nuggets were inspired. Hardaway powered Ball Arena's electricity for the next month with a double-dip of effort plays, diving two rows into the stands to save a loose ball on Denver's baseline, climbing out as the Nuggets turned it over, then gathering himself just in time to take a charge against Minnesota's ensuing 3-on-1.

Then the Timberwolves got frisky. Down 44-35 early in the second quarter, they started whittling away while Gobert and Jonas Valanciunas traded fouls. Gobert picked up three in as many minutes. Valanciunas got tagged with two and a technical. Minnesota was on an 11-0 run by the time Adelman used a timeout to get Jokic back on the floor ahead of schedule. Not even that helped. With Gobert sentenced to the bench, Chris Finch had to go smaller with Randle at the five. Jokic wasn't aggressive enough against those lineups until the second half, and the Wolves suddenly couldn't miss a shot.

They took the lead five minutes after trailing by 19. Overall, they engineered a 27-point swing in 10 minutes. Edwards suddenly had 20 points and a spring in his step.

Then the Nuggets struck back, scoring the last eight of the half. It ended in deja vu. Murray splashed a game-tying 51-footer at the buzzer, his league-leading fourth bucket of the season from behind halfcourt. In Game 4 between the Nuggets and Wolves, the first half finished identically -- with an 8-0 run and a heave from Murray. Denver went on to win the game. Not the series. This time, Game 2 went into intermission deadlocked and the slate was wiped clean, as the basketball gods intended.

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

Sean Keeler: Friday, when you toss in the snow and the USWNT? So cool. Literally. Saturday? Electric. Sunday? TCB. As in, Take Care of Business. And, by golly, the Avs better. When it comes to the first two rounds of the playoffs, there’s more pressure on Bednar to not get upset, because a.) He’s been here longer and everyone’s opinion on the big guy — pro or con — is pretty well set in stone by now; b.) You’re the No. 1 seed; c.) Bednar’s contract is up after next season. The Kings are the kind of first-round opponent the Avs should dispense of quickly — but they’re also the kind that are going to make you absolutely work for it. The Kings are going to hit you late. Hit you early. Hit you coming off the dang bus. Ugly hockey with a hot goaltender is Plan A for any underdog, and Bednar has to prove for the next eight days or so that he can win 3-2, 2-1, 1-0 kind of slugfests. So far, so good.

Renck: Outcomes microwave expectations. The Nuggets shot poorly and still smashed the Timberwolves in Game 1. It cemented the notion that Denver is capable of reeling off 16 victories over the next two months. But it is not likely. Having to go through the Spurs and Thunder creates a path more suited for a mountain goat. This is the first reason Adelman has less at stake. The second? Injuries provided him cover all season. The Nuggets secured the No. 3 seed because of his dynamic offense and ability to help role players reach their potential. But if Denver loses to the Spurs, for instance, it will be viewed as a disappointment, not a crash out. The same cannot be said for Bednar if the Avs fail to reach the Stanley Cup Finals.

Keeler: The outside noise will be louder for whatever the Nuggets do (or don’t do) this spring. The road’s tougher. The tension’s higher. Adelman’s regular season had more twists and turns than Nikola Jokic’s over 30 now, and everybody knows we’re unlikely to see his kind of NBA greatness in Denver gold, for this long, ever again. Josh Kroenke loves all his assets equally (wink), but let’s also be real: He’s a hoopster, not a puck head. The highest-up in KSE have the last word on Nuggets business. When it comes to the Avs, they’re more likely to defer to Joe Sakic and Chris MacFarland and admit they know what they don’t know. Unlike the end of the Michael Malone Era, Bednar’s led a comparatively calm, steady ship. Sakic digs that. C-Mac digs that. So do Josh and Stan.

Renck: Bednar has shown growth this season. He seems more willing to experiment, and demonstrated common sense by sticking with Scott Wedgewood in goal. Management has always exercised patience with Bedsy. But fans will not. In the recent ESPN top 50 ranking of players in the postseason, the Avs featured three in the top 10 — MacKinnon (first), Cale Makar (fourth) and Martin Necas (10th). And Wedgewood came in at No. 34. It is impossible to have this kind of star talent and steady third-and-fourth-line grinders and not be favored. Bednar is under more pressure, but must remain aggressive. Adelman, in some ways, has nothing to lose after the first round. Bednar must see his situation as everything to gain.

Keeler: And as much as we harp on Joker’s window, the Avs have long since pushed all their chips to the middle of the table. They’re bringing nine players who are 31 years or older into the postseason grind. Gabe Landeskog is 33. Naz Kadri is 35. Brent Burns is 41. If it’s not now, is it never? Should Bedsy get bounced before the second round, Stan Kroenke might have no choice but to change horses in a race he’d prefer to leave alone.

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.