Nuggets' players open up on the "toughest" loss of their careers

MINNEAPOLIS — Will Barton sat at his locker with head video coordinator Travess Armenta still dressed in portions of his uniform as the rest of his teammates showered, gathered their belongings and boarded the team bus. The two had their eyes fixed on Armenta’s laptop, which was replaying one of the final sequences of overtime where Barton missed a nine-foot runner with 24 seconds remaining and the Nuggets trailing by a bucket.

The Nuggets’ season ended in dramatic fashion in front of a capacity crowd at Target Center a few possessions later as the Timberwolves clinched their first postseason berth in 13 seasons in a 112-106 overtime win. For a second-straight year, the Nuggets finished their season one game out of the playoffs.

Barton, who wears his emotions on his sleeve, took the loss as hard as anyone.

“I just remember getting it to Jamal,” Barton said. “I think the play broke down a little bit. Paul got it, tried to make a play and made a crazy pass to me. Jimmy closed out to me strong, and I got to the rim for a floater I make every day. And I missed.”

After Nuggets coach Michael Malone met with reporters for a mere two minutes, Denver’s dejected locker room opened up. Few words were uttered. Glances were exchanged, but faces remained blank.

Paul Millsap emerged from the showers, walked over to his locker with his head down, dressed without saying a word to any of his teammates and swiftly departed into the Minnesota night. Jamal Murray sat with his head in his hands as Gary Harris tried to put the loss into words from across the room.

“That was one of the biggest games of my life,” Murray said.

Barton, who’s an unrestricted free agent this summer and could have played his last game in a Nuggets’ uniform Wednesday night, said this is the toughest loss that he’s suffered throughout his playing career.

“Toughest one to date. Definitely,” Barton said. “Everything that was on the line. How bad our team wanted it, the organization. To lose, definitely the toughest one for me.”

Wednesday’s loss was every bit the play-in, Game 7, all-or-nothing type of atmosphere that was expected. Timberwolves fans packed the arena, waved their towels and stood for most of the fourth quarter and all of overtime. Before the game, the Timberwolves’ PA announcer shouted: “This is the biggest game in over a decade.”

Denver fought off the fans and answered every Timberwolves’ run with clutch baskets of its own. The Nuggets just didn’t make enough baskets down the stretch.

Like he’s done over the past month, Nikola Jokic carried the Nuggets on the offensive end of the floor. Jokic scored a game-high 35 points, hit 14 of his 25 attempts from the field and converted four of his seven shots from distance. He also finished with 10 rebounds, four assists and went mano a mano with Karl-Anthony Towns for most of the night.

“I think we need to win the easier games, not like this,” Jokic said when reflecting on the season. “I think we’re supposed to have like 50 wins, maybe a little bit more, but we lost the easy games.”

The Nuggets rattled off a miraculous six-game winning streak against six playoff-caliber opponents who were a combined 64 games over .500 to even get to this point. Denver relied on its defense for the first time all season in wins over the Pacers and Timberwolves last week before holding the Trail Blazers to 82 points on Monday, which set up Wednesday’s winner-take-all showdown.

But as Jokic alluded to, Denver shouldn’t have had to scrap and claw back from the dead to have a shot at playoff contention. Losses in December to the Joel Embiid-less 76ers and in January to the Kings, Hawks and Suns will haunt Denver’s season once players and coaches decompress from the loss and look back at what went wrong in the franchise’s fifth consecutive year without a playoff appearance.

“It was a tough loss. Not happy, sad, whatever,” Jokic said. “I think we gave ourselves a chance to win.”