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DENVER (AP) — Franchise-shifting changes could be in store for the Denver Nuggets after their first-round flop against the short-handed Minnesota Timberwolves.
The third-seeded Nuggets roared into the playoffs on a 12-game winning streak and took care of Minnesota in Game 1, only to blow a 19-point lead in a Game 2 loss and they never regained the momentum against the more athletic and physical Timberwolves.
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The Nuggets led the league in scoring with a 122-point average during the season and only twice did they fail to crack 100 points, a number the Wolves denied them three times at home in the series that ended with Minnesota’s 110-98 win in Game 6 on Thursday night.
Denver’s All-Star duo of Nikola Jokic, who started out slow in the series, and Jamal Murray, who shot just 4-of-17 in Game 6, accepted responsibility for the loss.
So did David Adelman, who completed his first full year as head coach with a first-round exit after leading Denver into a seven-game second-round loss to eventual champion Oklahoma City a year ago.
“This is on me,” Murray said.
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“I needed to play better,” Jokic said.
Jokic insisted Adelman wasn’t to blame for Denver’s first-round failure, saying, “No, it’s not his fault that we cannot rebound. It’s not his fault that we cannot catch the ball. There is nothing to blame on David Adelman. It was all us.”
Adelman did his own mea culpa, however.
“I’m the head coach,” he said. “I take responsibility for things that didn’t go well here.”
Plenty went wrong for Denver, which was plagued by injuries all season and had both Aaron Gordon and Peyton Watson watching in street clothes as the Nuggets’ season ended once again at the hands of the Timberwolves.
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The Nuggets never really responded to Wolves coach Chris Finch calling them floppers or Jaden McDaniels calling them out by name for being soft defenders. They took the lead of the mild-mannered Adelman in just shrugging off what many teams would have felt were fighting words in back-to-back losses at Minnesota in Games 3 and 4.
Although Jokic scored 28 points Thursday night and Cam Johnson added 27,…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/nuggets-face-franchise-shifting-questions-215150291.html
Author : ARNIE STAPLETON
Publish date : 2026-05-01 21:51:00
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