Nuggets blow 23-point lead to Spurs, losing 1-seed footing before finale

San Antonio Spurs guard Devonte’ Graham (4) shoots the winning shot against the Denver Nuggets during the second half of an NBA basketball game in San Antonio, Friday, April 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

SAN ANTONIO — To hold serve at the top of the Western Conference standings, the Nuggets had to weather one last Wemby storm.

They couldn’t.

In what might have been the last game of Victor Wembanyama’s Rookie of the Year-destined season, the Nuggets kept him flustered for one half before he turned into a flamethrower in the other. Denver couldn’t survive the surge, losing their seeding on a Devonte’ Graham transition floater with 0.9 seconds remaining for a 121-120 defeat Friday night at Frost Bank Center. It was Denver’s only deficit of the second half, right after Nikola Jokic missed an open foul line jumper.

“We had our chances,” Jokic said. “I missed an open look on the last shot. It’s something that I need to make. I missed, and they had a fast break.”

The Spurs scored 71 points in the second half.

“We didn’t defend at all,” coach Michael Malone said. “… The very few times they did miss in the fourth quarter, we gave up eight offensive rebounds for 13 points. So give San Antonio a ton of credit. They stayed with it. We were up by 23 at one point, and just, too many blow-bys, too many 3s, too many leaving our feet on shot fakes. Just a lot of things that I would say did not go our way down the stretch.”

The Nuggets (56-25) will now finish in third place via a three-way tiebreaker if Denver, Minnesota and Oklahoma City each win their finales Sunday. The Nuggets play in Memphis.

“It’s disappointing,” Malone said. “Really disappointing.”

To get to this point, a 23-point lead in the third quarter had to be sliced to six, setting up a frantic fourth in which the clutch Nuggets finally wilted against the worst team in the West. It was 81-60 with 8:16 remaining in the third frame. Then Wembanyama buried a pull-up three. During a 26-9 Spurs run over four minutes and change, he scored 17 of 19 San Antonio points, including a trio of consecutive 3-pointers. The third was enough to finally warrant an aggravated Malone timeout. Reggie Jackson entered and turned it over on an eight-second violation.

Malone would take one more rage timeout in the quarter. The Nuggets responded to that one better, scoring the last six of the period. Role players were mostly solid in Jokic’s rest minutes, but the starters were lackadaisical on defense and missed open shots. Jamal Murray was Denver’s most consistent source of offense throughout the game, scoring 35 on 5-of-11 shooting beyond the arc. Jokic scored 14 in the first quarter and eight the rest of the game.

“If you remember last year, we did a kind of similar thing,” Jokic said. “We lost to a couple teams (at the end of the regular season; three consecutive on the road). So it seems like we didn’t learn our lesson. But maybe the year needs to be repeated, the same thing happens and hopefully we’re gonna win a championship again.”