Regrettable defeats
A rundown of the Nuggets' losses to some of the NBA's worst teams this season:
Dec. 4 at Dallas: On a night Denver played without Jokic to begin a six-game road trip, the Mavericks' lead quickly ballooned to 25 points in the first half and never got below eight in a 122-105 victory.
Jan. 6 at Sacramento: A Nuggets team that struggled to take care of the ball all season was at its worst in this loss to the Kings, committing 26 turnovers for 40 points in a 106-98 loss, though Zach Randolph and George Hill were both inactive for the Kings.
Jan. 10 vs. Atlanta: A Hawks team playing the final contest of a five-game road trip shot 50 percent from the floor and sank 12 3-pointers against the Nuggets in a 110-97 victory. Denver, meanwhile, went 9-of-37 from long range.
Jan. 19 vs. Phoenix: Budding star guard Devin Booker went off for 30 points, while the Suns outscored Denver 31-19 in the second quarter to build a 15-point first-half lead.
March 6 at Dallas: The game most remembered for Jokic and Murray getting benched for the entire fourth quarter first slipped away for the Nuggets when the Mavericks outscored Denver 38-23 in the third period.
March 17 at Memphis: In a disastrous start to the longest road trip of the season, Denver fell behind by as many as 21 points against a Grizzlies team that had lost its previous 19 games.
DENVER — The emotions were still so raw Thursday that Nuggets coach that Michael Malone did not conduct his standard season ending exit interviews.
Instead, Malone vowed to touch base with each of his players in the coming days, after they cleaned out their lockers, underwent a final physical exam and went their separate ways to begin the offseason, still dazed from a season-ending overtime defeat at Minnesota on Wednesday night.
The loss in a rare winner-take-all contest for the final Western Conference playoff berth squashed a thrilling end to Denver's season. Six consecutive victories put the Nuggets on the verge of their first postseason appearance since 2013.
But an overwhelming theme as players trickled out of the Pepsi Center on Thursday was how the Nuggets could have avoided that situation altogether, had they simply done a better job of beating the NBA's basement-dwellers throughout the season.
"If we play with that sense of urgency that we did at the end, then we wouldn't have even been in this position," swingman Will Barton said. "It's all a part of growing. It's tough, and hopefully we all can challenge ourselves to get better and that stays with us and drives us, because I know that will drive me."
The Nuggets (46-36) lost at least once to each of the bottom five teams in the NBA — Phoenix, Memphis, Atlanta, Dallas (twice) and Sacramento. All can be dissected when Denver finished one game shy of the playoffs.
The timing of those games was not always ideal, as four-time all-star Paul Millsap missed four of those contests following wrist surgery, and second-leading scorer Gary Harris could not play at Memphis due to a knee injury. And those stunning defeats did spark some key turning points, with the Phoenix loss prompting Malone to take the reins off Denver's free-flowing offense and standout big man Nikola Jokic going on a late-season tear after getting benched in the fourth quarter against the Mavericks on March 6. But players and coaches acknowledge they sometimes did not demonstrate the necessary level of focus when facing lower-caliber teams, a difficult lesson for a young Nuggets team.
"That (Minnesota) loss weighs the exact same amount, as far as record goes, as the loss to Atlanta at home," 17-year veteran Richard Jefferson said. "You win that game, you're in a much better position going into (Minnesota) ...
"I feel like everyone in that locker room should feel like we probably underachieved a little bit this year. That should be your frustration going into the offseason and (make you say), 'I'm gonna work that much harder and put forth that much more effort,' because I feel like we left some things on the table. Sometimes it comes back and it manifests in the last game of the season."
Perhaps those puzzling losses were offset by Denver's improbable wins, highlighted by Harris' buzzer-beater against Oklahoma City in February and the overtime triumphs against the Thunder and Milwaukee to kick-start the Nuggets' late six-game winning streak.