Nikola Jokic, Nuggets have night to forget in Game 3 blowout loss - ESPN

MINNEAPOLIS — In what was statistically the worst shooting night of his playoff career, Nikola Jokic missed 19 of his 26 shots in Thursday night's Game 3 and the Denver Nuggets, whom he led to an historic offensive season, failed to reach 100 points for the first time since January.

«I've never seen him shoot what he shot today,» guard Jamal Murray said. «That's an outlier type of game.»

It resulted in the Minnesota Timberwolves running away with a 113-96 win, putting the Nuggets into a 2-1 series deficit as pressure mounts on Jokic to solve Rudy Gobert and the Minnesota defense before Denver's season expires.

«They're big, tall, long,» Jokic said. «They're really good defensive players.»

The Nuggets had control of this series through five quarters. They won Game 1 and sprinted to a 19-point first-half lead in Game 2. But the Timberwolves responded with an 11-0 second-quarter run when Jokic first hit the bench and have completely flipped momentum since.

Jokic had a chance to close out the Timberwolves in Game 2, but the Nuggets were outscored by 10 points in the final seven minutes and Jokic missed six of his seven shots, leading to a Timberwolves escape. In total, he went 1-of-8 against Gobert in Game 2, and that ineffectiveness followed him to Minnesota.

Jokic and the Nuggets went 3-of-21 shooting in an 11-point first quarter, their lowest-scoring quarter of the season. Minnesota built a near immediate double-digit cushion, upped its lead to 27 points and never let it slip below 10 in the final three quarters.

«When you open the game like that, the easy ones don't go,» Jokic said. «Really good defensive [first] quarter by them, really bad offensive quarter by us.»

The Nuggets finished the regular season with an