What a wild turn of events, and probably not for the better.

The Denver Nuggets lost to the San Antonio Spurs 121-120 on Friday night, allowing 71 second half points and allowing the Spurs to crawl back into a game that Denver led by 23 points in the early third quarter. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong for the Nuggets down the stretch, with Devonte’ Graham ultimately hitting a floater over Jamal Murray in transition with 0.9 seconds left to put the Spurs up by one.

 Denver had an opportunity to win it at the end, but a five-second violation on the inbounds pass sealed Denver’s fate. Murray held onto the ball for too long waiting for a cleaner shot to open up, but Denver’s out-of-bounds play execution generated zero advantages.

The Nuggets let go of the rope. They relaxed. They thought they had the game won and they eased up for a bit too long. Then, Victor Wembanyama took over, scoring 17 points in the third quarter to get the Spurs back into the game. After that, Denver’s bench struggled to grab defensive rebounds in the fourth quarter, Zeke Nnaji and Peyton Watson chief among them. Zach Collins and Julian Champagnie were among the difficult players for the Nuggets to box out, and the second chance points hurt Denver greatly.

But the big killer for the Nuggets was not Wembanyama, but Sandro Mamukelashvili. The Georgian-American big man had a previous season-high of 15 points heading into tonight, and he broke that with ease, scoring 21 points on 8-of-14 from the field and 3-of-5 from three. He made key shots, the majority over Nikola Jokic on the perimeter, and ultimately helped flip the momentum of the game in the second half with his hustle plays.

Denver’s lack of hustle was alarming, though not surprising given the opponent. Jamal Murray went to work and had one of his best scoring games of the season with 35 points. It looked like he was going to be the story of the game for a while before the Nuggets got caught from behind.

 Then, the game turned into a clutch affair, and the Nuggets were out-executed by one of the worst teams in the league. Murray and Jokic missed shots. Michael Porter Jr. got blocked at the rim by Mamukelashvili and missed a clutch three that might have sealed the game. Then, Jokic missed a jumper with nine seconds left, allowing the Spurs a transition opportunity that Graham took advantage of.

Jokic had seven rebounds in a game the Nuggets needed to win.

Porter had three rebounds in a game the Nuggets needed to win.

Gordon had four rebounds in a game the Nuggets needed to win.

Caldwell-Pope had one rebound in a game the Nuggets needed to win.

Murray had five rebounds. For a guard, that’s pretty good.

The second unit gets a lot of flak for defensive rebounding, and they were wretched. Zeke Nnaji had the basketball roll down his back on one possession that the Spurs collected and scored for an easy two points.

But the starters can control their own effort, and that effort wasn’t good enough to win tonight, and that’s alarming. Yes, they just defeated the Minnesota Timberwolves in a game that mattered. No, that didn’t guarantee them the top spot in the West, and now, they’re up a creek without a paddle in that race. Everyone in Denver has done such a great job of staying focused enough to win the important games against sub .500 teams, even when the effort waxed and waned. Tonight, Denver let go of the rope, and it burned them for the first time in a long time.

Denver’s last loss to a sub .500 team? January 10th at the Utah Jazz just over three months ago.

The Timberwolves and Oklahoma City Thunder both won tonight. The standings are currently as follows:

  1. Oklahoma City Thunder (56-25)
  2. Minnesota Timberwolves (56-25)
  3. Denver Nuggets (56-25)

A three-way tie in the standings goes to the Thunder because they’re 5-3 against the other two teams combined. The T’Wolves are 4-4. The Nuggets are 3-5. If all three teams win on Sunday in the final games of the season, the standings will hold. If all teams lose, the standings will hold.

The Nuggets have some decisions to make when they travel to face the Memphis Grizzlies on Sunday. The Grizzlies are the walking wounded right now, but they were still competitive with the fully healthy Los Angeles Lakers tonight. Do the Nuggets go all out for the win even though they’re unlikely to move up in the standings? The Thunder play the Dallas Mavericks, who have already locked up either the 4th or 5th seed. The T’Wolves play the Phoenix Suns who might still have something to play for to try and avoid the Play-In.

Will the Nuggets play their starters? Do the starters even deserve to play after tonight? Is there a point to putting them out there? If the Nuggets still were in pole position for the 1 seed, perhaps, but probably not anymore.

No, I expect the Nuggets to now rest up on Sunday, let everything else fall into place, and be okay with the 3 seed if that’s where they end up.

A bitter way to lose homecourt advantage throughout the playoffs though.

Final Rotations