Grading the Nuggets Season: What Went Right, Wrong for Denver After Disastrous Playoff Loss

Evaluating the Nuggets’ season after their rough first-round loss to the rival Timberwolves.

Nikola Jokić put together another Hall of Fame-caliber season for the Nuggets, but it wasn’t enough to lead them to a deep playoff run. | Ron Chenoy-Imagn Images

The Nuggets season came to a close on Thursday night with a 110–98 loss to the Timberwolves in Minnesota.

As long as Nikola Jokić is on the floor and playing at an MVP level, each Denver season will come with championship expectations, and 2025–26 was no different. While the prior season ended prematurely, the Nuggets pushed the champion Thunder to the brink, falling in seven games in the Western Conference semifinals. Losses in Games 2 and 7 were routs for Oklahoma City, but there was plenty of reason for optimism for the Nuggets.

Denver entered 2025–26 ready for its first full season under David Adelman, who did seem to provide a jolt after the stunning late-season dismissal of Michael Malone in 2025. After shaking up the front office, the team swapped out Michael Porter Jr., following his postseason underperformance, for Cameron Johnson. The Nuggets looked like they had a burgeoning young star in Christian Braun and locked him up with a five-year, $125 million contract.

While they never quite challenged the Western Conference’s pair of elite teams, the Thunder and Spurs, during the regular season, Denver did win 12 consecutive games to end the year and clinch the No. 3 seed in the playoffs. A matchup against Minnesota was expected to be competitive given the two sides’ recent playoff history, but the Nuggets had won three of four regular season matchups, and entered the playoffs as the hottest team in the NBA, while the Timberwolves limped into the postseason.

Even with Minnesota losing multiple key players, including superstar guard Anthony Edwards, during the series, the Timberwolves came out on top and ended another promising Denver season prematurely.

Given the early exit, how do we grade the full season for the Nuggets? Let’s dive in.

Nuggets regular season grade: B

Nuggets star guard Jamal Murray put together the best regular season of his career and earned his first All-Star nod in 2026. | Bruce Kluckhohn-Imagn Images

• Record: 54–28
• Western Conference finish: 3rd

In some ways, Denver took a solid step forward this year, with Adelman taking the reins for 82 games. The Nuggets had an NBA-high offensive rating of 122.6, the best mark in franchise history.

Jokić is once again an MVP finalist and his numbers are right in line with the best seasons of his career. While his shooting percentages dipped a bit from 2024–25, his stats were still remarkable: 27.7 points per game along with league-highs in rebounds (12.9) and assists (10.7). He is the first player to lead the league in both rebounds and assists per game in a single season. 

Of course, Jokić’s dominance is unsurprising at this point. Perhaps even more important for the Nuggets was the superstar ascension of Jamal Murray. The sharpshooter has been Jokić’s most reliable running man for years, and built a reputation as a reliable postseason performer before he had made his first All-Star Game, an accomplishment he notched in 2026. Murray posted career highs in just about every meaningful stat category, including points (25.4), rebounds (4.4), assists (7.1), field goal and three-point percentages (.483, .435). His 9.5 win shares were by far the most of his career. He was clearly one of the league’s best guards for a full season, and not just spurts.

The team found some offseason success, signing Tim Hardaway Jr., who was a Sixth Man of the Year finalist. Other moves did not quite click. Braun played just 44 games and took a step back after signing a huge five-year contract over the summer. Johnson, acquired in the Porter trade, never quite fit in the way many imagined and played just 54 regular season games. Aaron Gordon, a crucial part of this Nuggets run, played just 36 games. 

Injuries and defensive struggles kept Denver from reaching its potential and competing with Oklahoma City and San Antonio for the top of the West. The team’s defensive rating of 117.4 was just 21st in the NBA. While the offensive rating was the best in Nuggets history, that was the worst.

Still, there was plenty for Denver fans to root for this season, especially down the stretch, when the team finished the season with 12 consecutive victories and seemed to be peaking at the perfect time.

Nuggets postseason grade: D+

Even with Anthony Edwards sidelined for much of the series, the Timberwolves were able to outlast the Nuggets in the first round. | Jeffrey Becker-Imagn Images

That late winning streak allowed the Nuggets to grab the third-seed, beating out a banged-up Lakers squad for the spot against Minnesota. On paper, that was a major victory, as it would allow them to avoid the Thunder until the conference finals. Of course, they may have been better off staying in fourth and facing a Rockets squad that lost Kevin Durant to injury and has struggled with a Los Angeles squad without Luka Dončić and, until Game 5, Austin Reaves. 

Denver drew a Timberwolves team with whom they’ve developed quite the rivalry, after beating them in the 2023 playoffs and falling to them in 2024. The animosity between the two sides was palpable throughout the series, energy that seemed to fuel Minnesota through costly injuries to Edwards and Donte DiVincenzo.

Without Peyton Watson available to help Denver’s perimeter defense due to a hamstring injury, the Timberwolves were able to carve up the Nuggets, even with injuries decimating their own backcourt.

To give Denver a small amount of credit, it didn’t go down without a fight. Down 3–1 in Game 5, the Nuggets gutted out a 125–113 victory. Jokić got his with a 27/12/16 triple-double, and they got a lift from forward Spencer Jones, who had perhaps his best game of the entire year with 20 points and three blocks, and Johnson, who had his best game of the postseason after an inconsistent regular season.

Even so, this team looked like it might have what it takes to compete for another NBA title at the end of the regular season. Instead, it folded in the first round to a team that sleepwalked through much of the season and lost its superstar during the series. There’s no way to sugarcoat this: the playoffs were a disaster for the Nuggets, and call into question the next steps for a franchise that doesn’t have a lot of room to shake things up this offseason.

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