Nuggets shot selection broke down in the seconds before the miss, when Denver still had time to find oxygen and somehow kept choosing labor.
Murray stood above the break, right hand hammering the ball, eyes scanning bodies that never seemed to move out of the way. Nikola Jokić waited near the elbow with his palms open, not frozen out, not ignored, but surrounded by the kind of length that makes even a genius work through mud.
Rudy Gobert lingered near the paint. Karl-Anthony Towns leaned into contact. Jaden McDaniels stretched passing lanes until they felt thinner than thread.
Denver still knew the old music: back cuts, flip passes, Murray curls and Gordon dives that once arrived like doors slamming behind sleeping defenses. Minnesota kept pressing tiny pauses into that rhythm, and those pauses changed everything.
Game 7 ended 98 to 90 in Denver. The Wolves climbed out of a 20 point hole, won the series 4 to 3, and sent the defending champions home before the conference finals.
Murray scored 35. Jokić had 34 and 19 rebounds.
No other Nugget reached double figures.
Minnesota found the pressure points
Denver did not enter that series as some fragile machine waiting to crack.
This group won 57 games, finished second in the Western Conference, and built an offense around touch, timing and one of the league’s cleanest passing ecosystems. The scoring average, 114.9 points per game, looked strong enough. The assist number told the better story. At nearly 30 a night, Denver’s best possessions rarely looked forced.
They looked discovered.
Minnesota took that discovery process and made it feel heavy.
The Wolves did not need to erase Jokić. Nobody does that. Their plan worked because it shaved clean seconds off Denver’s reads. Gobert stayed close enough to the rim to protect the paint without lunging at every fake. Towns used his size to make Jokić work before the pass ever left his hands.
McDaniels bothered Murray at the point of attack. Anthony Edwards brought enough pressure to make every ball handler feel watched from two angles.
That kind of defense does not always create ugly shots immediately. More often, it creates almost good ones.
Murray rises with a defender brushing his hip. Porter catches after the ball sits in his hands for half a beat too long. Jokić flips a soft shot over traffic because the paint already has bodies waiting.
One miss never told the story.
The repeated cost of arriving late did.
Game 7 showed the difference between patience and delay
For a half, Denver looked ready to survive the whole thing.
Murray had 24 by halftime. Ball Arena carried that old champion noise, the rumble that rises when a crowd remembers last June and starts expecting the next punch. Denver led by 15 at the break, then pushed the margin to 20.
After that, Minnesota squeezed the air out of the building.
The Wolves outscored Denver 60 to 37 after halftime. McDaniels and Towns each scored 23. Edwards shot poorly, but his defense on Murray still mattered, especially as the game slowed and every Denver possession needed a clean first step that rarely came.
Denver’s stars kept swinging. Murray hit hard shots. Jokić dragged rebounds away from traffic and tried to create order from the elbow.
Still, the rest of the offense shrank until every possession seemed to ask the same two men for a miracle.
That is where Denver’s shot selection became a symptom.
The choices looked worse because the setup broke down first. Murray had to create after the action had already lost its advantage. Jokić had to score, pass, rebound and solve spacing all at once. Porter could not find enough clean rhythm. Gordon cut into traffic instead of open floor.
A title offense can survive a rough quarter.
It cannot survive when easy looks turn into negotiations.
Murray became the emergency exit
Murray has earned every difficult jumper people give him credit for.
His playoff résumé carries too much proof to pretend otherwise. He has made floaters with a big on his shoulder, pullups with the clock near zero, and threes that feel rude because the defense did almost everything right.
Minnesota turned that gift against Denver.
The Wolves pushed him into shots that looked familiar but came from the wrong kind of possession. A Murray pullup after he rejects a screen and catches the big leaning backward can break a defense. That same pullup after 18 seconds of stalled movement can rescue the defense.
It ends the possession.
It does not bend the series.
Game 6 delivered the harshest version. Minnesota beat Denver 115 to 70, and Murray went 4 for 18 in a night that made every miss sound louder than the last.
Two nights later, he answered with 35.
That response had pride in it. It also had strain. Denver did not need Murray to be merely great. The Nuggets needed him to be great while fixing possessions that should not have needed fixing.
That is too much tax for one guard.
Jokić could still solve the floor until the floor asked too much
Jokić gave Denver one perfect reminder in Game 5.
He scored 40, added 13 assists, and turned a tied series into a 3 to 2 Denver lead. For one night, the old order returned. The ball moved through him with no panic. Gobert got pulled into uncomfortable space. Cutters found daylight.
Minnesota looked less like a wall and more like a defense trying to guess the next sentence before Jokić finished writing it.
That game matters because it proves the better version never vanished.
The issue came when Minnesota demanded that Jokić perform that kind of surgery while carrying too many instruments himself. He had to score against size. Rebound through crowds. Keep Murray connected. Create Porter’s clean looks. Punish doubles.
Then he still had to anchor every late possession with calm hands.
By Game 7, his 34 and 19 looked both heroic and exhausting. Not empty. Never that. The numbers showed the burden as much as the brilliance.
Denver cannot let Jokić’s genius become permission for clutter.
He can make an average possession look polished. A late read can look planned in his hands. That skill won Denver a championship. Against Minnesota, it also hid how often the Nuggets asked him to clean up a mess before anyone else had created pressure.
The dunker spot lost its violence
Aaron Gordon gives Denver something numbers do not always catch.
He makes defenders pay for relaxing.
When Denver hums, Gordon lives near the baseline like a trap. Jokić turns. A help defender leans toward Murray. Gordon slips behind the play, catches high, and finishes before the rim protector can fully turn.
Those cuts used to feel sudden and unfair.
Minnesota stayed alert enough to make them feel crowded.
Gobert did not chase every decoy. Towns used his chest and size to keep Jokić from turning cleanly into automatic passes. McDaniels and Edwards dug down without completely abandoning shooters.
Each small decision changed Gordon’s world.
The dunker spot no longer looked like a launchpad. Too often, it looked like a parking space surrounded by arms.
That mattered everywhere else. When Gordon cannot threaten the rim early, Porter’s defender can close a little harder. Murray sees help a little sooner. Jokić holds the ball one extra beat.
One extra beat sounds harmless until it becomes the entire possession.
Denver’s offense needs Gordon’s cuts to feel violent. Not decorative. Not occasional.
Violent.
His movement has to scare the back line enough to open air for everyone else.
The role players felt every closing window
Michael Porter Jr. can hit shots that laugh at coverage.
That remains true. His release sits so high that defenders often contest the idea of the shot more than the shot itself.
Minnesota still made his life uncomfortable.
Porter needed quicker catches and cleaner rhythm. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope needed more possessions where the ball found him before the closeout arrived angry. Christian Braun brought activity, and Peyton Watson offered energy, but the series kept asking one blunt question: who could punish the Wolves before the defense reset?
Too often, Denver answered late.
The regular season numbers did not scream panic. Denver hit 37.4 percent from three on 31.2 attempts per game, a profile that fit a team built more on passing pressure than volume bombing. In the playoffs, that outside touch dipped, and the misses carried the feel of tired legs and rushed decisions, not just cold shooting.
That is the part a simple box score misses.
An open shot after quick movement feels different from an open shot after the possession has stalled. The rim looks the same.
The heartbeat does not.
Game 3 proved Denver still had the answer
Denver’s best counter came when the series looked closest to slipping away early.
Down 2 to 0, the Nuggets went to Minneapolis and won Game 3 by 27. Murray scored 24. Jokić controlled the shape of the game. Denver played with a decisiveness that had been missing at home.
The difference showed in the timing.
Denver did not wait until Minnesota had loaded every body toward the ball. Passes moved before the second defender got comfortable. Gordon found stronger lanes. Murray attacked before the possession became a puzzle. Porter’s spacing carried more threat because the ball did not stick long enough for the Wolves to relax.
Game 4 followed with another Denver win. Game 5 brought Jokić’s 40 point masterpiece.
For three straight games, the champions did not merely survive the matchup. They bent it back toward themselves.
That stretch should haunt them a little.
Denver had the solution in its hands. Minnesota adjusted, yes, but the Nuggets also drifted back into possessions that asked too much of shot making and not enough of pressure.
The loss hurts because the cleaner version existed.
The three point math was really about timing
Denver does not need to become a copy of a pure spread offense.
That would miss the point.
Jokić gives the Nuggets a different geometry than most teams, and Murray’s midrange craft has real postseason value. Gordon’s cutting, Porter’s size shooting and the two man game create enough variety to win at the highest level.
Still, Minnesota exposed one spacing truth Denver cannot ignore.
The weak side has to hurt defenses earlier. If the first catch becomes a hesitation, the Wolves of the world will recover. If the corner shooter waits, the paint stays packed. When Gordon’s defender can cheat one extra step toward Jokić without paying for it, the whole possession tightens.
Shot quality starts before the release.
It starts with the first screen angle. The first cut. The first quick pass that makes a defender turn his head instead of staring at the ball.
That was the difference against Minnesota. Denver often found a reasonable shot. The Wolves forced them to work so hard for it that reasonable became a win for the defense.
What Denver has to carry forward
The Nuggets should not panic because Minnesota found the bruise.
Panic would flatten everything special about them.
Jokić remains the best offensive organizer in the sport. Murray still owns a playoff nerve most guards spend careers chasing. Gordon gives Denver muscle, timing and vertical force. Porter still stretches coverage with one of the cleanest releases in the league.
The issue sits underneath all of that.
Denver has to create pressure earlier, before the possession turns into a rescue mission. The next version needs quick slips, first side force, weak side shots taken before the closeout gets balanced, and rim pressure before an elite defense can build a wall and wait.
That does not mean every jumper becomes a sin.
It means Denver has to stop asking beautiful offense to save late offense.
Picture next spring. Jokić catches near the elbow. Murray circles above him. Gordon waits near the baseline. Porter stands one pass away with his hands ready. The building tightens because everyone remembers what that shape once meant.
The question is whether Denver can make that shape feel dangerous again.
One cut can reopen the floor. A quick three can punish help. That early drive can keep the defense honest.
Or the ball can stick, the clock can bleed, and a beautiful offense can spend another spring wondering why the right shot arrived half a second too late.
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FAQs
Q1. Why did the Nuggets lose to the Timberwolves in 2024?
A1. Minnesota crowded Denver’s best actions, slowed Jokić’s reads and forced Murray into too many late clock shots.
Q2. What was the biggest issue with Nuggets shot selection?
A2. Denver often found decent shots too late. Minnesota made the Nuggets work so hard that even open looks felt rushed.
Q3. How did Jamal Murray play in Game 7?
A3. Murray scored 35 points and carried Denver early. The problem was that the rest of the offense could not keep pace.
Q4. Did Nikola Jokić play badly against Minnesota?
A4. No. Jokić still produced huge numbers, including 34 points and 19 rebounds in Game 7. The burden around him became too heavy.
Q5. What should Denver fix next?
A5. Denver needs earlier pressure, quicker weak side decisions and cleaner rhythm before possessions become rescue missions.
Tracking stats and settling debates. If there is a scoreboard, I am watching it.
