From celebration to cataclysmic ouster. You could almost feel the afterparty warming up. The Nuggets came out of the halftime locker room up 15 and promptly pushed their lead to 20. You could see Luka Doncic and Dallas preparing to fly northwest for Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals.

Then it all came crashing down. The defending champs looked like they’d finally vanquished this pesky, young Timberwolves team. Instead of a knockout blow, though, Michael Malone’s team got jumped. Minnesota outscored Denver 32-9 over a 12-minute span and in the process turned a 20-point hole into a lead.

More than that, they did it on the defending champions’ home floor. They won three times at Ball Arena in this series. They ended any chance of a repeat and did so despite star guard Anthony Edwards not getting going until the second half.

This one’s going to sting for a long time in Denver.

A Murray flurry, but then a drought. Jamal Murray missed at the rim on Denver’s first offensive possession. He missed four of his first five shots early. Then he went nuclear. Murray ripped off 24 first-half points and started it with back-to-back 3-pointers that launched a 16-0 Nuggets run between the late first and early second quarters. When Murray hit a tough fadeaway, got fouled in the process and turned and pounded his chest while looking into the crowd, you knew he had fully entered the zone. Just as pretty: A no-look drop-off to Aaron Gordon for a two-handed flush while Denver grabbed control of the game. When he scored the first five of the third and ran Denver’s lead to 20, he had 29 on the night.

Then… it dried up. He didn’t score again until midway through the fourth as Minnesota marched back and into the lead. Murray finished with 35, but Edwards helped shut his water off while the Timberwolves set about playing spoiler.

3-point woes.As the Timberwolves began to chip into a 20-point deficit, the Nuggets just kept putting up shots from beyond the arc. They’ll go down eventually, right? Right? Right? Wrong. In season-deciding fashion. Denver made a pedestrian 4 of 12 in the first half. In the third quarter, they missed 9 of 10. In the fourth quarter, the bricks just kept coming. By the time they trailed by 10 with 2:30 remaining, Denver was 8 of 30 from beyond the arc. Nikola Jokic, Michael Porter Jr. and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope combined to go 4 of 20 from deep.

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