MINNEAPOLIS –  The Nuggets got punked, then turned into whiny, little chumps.

As a 112-96 loss to Minnesota covered them in shame, center Nikola Jokic lost his cool when Timberwolves forward Jaden McDaniels laughed in the Nuggets’ face by scoring a breakaway layup as the clock wound down to the final horn.

After Denver had already lost the battle, Jokic wanted to fight McDaniels.

Clown move, brother.

Jokic sprinted more than 50 feet from his side of the court to accost McDaniels in front of the Minnesota bench.

“I don’t regret,” said Jokic, who took offense to McDaniels showing up the Nuggets by scoring a layup with 1.3 seconds on the clock after Minnesota had already pushed them to the edge of playoff elimination with a 3-1 deficit in this best-of-seven series.  

It was a sad, classless way to say goodbye to the golden years of Nuggets basketball.

No teammate joined Jokic in the fray until he was already surrounded by the Timberwolves.

“I didn’t like what McDaniels did. The game was over,” Denver coach David Adelman said. “The game was conceded on both sides.”

If Denver had conceded defeat, then for what earthly reason did Adelman still have Jokic in the game, where the center’s ill temper and big hands could’ve cost a suspension to the three-time MVP? Stupid is as stupid does. The Avalanche doesn’t expect Nathan MacKinnon to be both its leading scorer and the team enforcer.

The Nuggets like to talk ad nauseam about their championship DNA.

They are lousy, however, at demonstrating it.

Time and again, given a chance to win, the Nuggets fold.

“Is that a question?” Adelman said, after I criticized his team for its repeated failure to put the hammer down, especially on this night, when the Timberwolves lost starters Anthony Edwards and Donte DiVincenzo to injury. 

If Minnesota role player Ayo Dosunmu can drop 43 points on the Nuggets in a must-win game for Denver, maybe they really all are bad defenders.

Dosunmu was the hero who stepped up when Ant-Man limped off the court in the first half after his knee buckled.

The NBA playoffs have increasingly become a war of physical attrition rather than a test of basketball skill. It seems every time you turn around these days, another star player essential to his team’s championship quest is going down, writhing in pain, summoning trainers to the court.

The playoff bracket is littered with injuries, from Jalen Williams to Kevin Durant and from Victor Wembanyama to Luka Doncic.

With all the carnage on the court, only the mentally strong survive.

And these Nuggets are too stubborn to acknowledge that they’ve become too weak-minded to be taken seriously as a legit championship contender.

Denver surrendered its crown in 2024, when the Nuggets blew a 20-point lead on their home floor in Game 7 against Minnesota. A textbook definition of choking, no?

In their infinite wisdom, Stan and Josh Kroenke fired this team’s feistiness. On the eve of the playoffs last April, the Nuggets abruptly dismissed irascible coach Michael Malone and replaced him with Adelman, a student of the game who stands in front of the Denver bench like a man waiting for a bus.

How’s that working out?

With an opportunity to seize a 3-1 series lead last spring against Oklahoma City, the Nuggets blew an eight-point lead on their home floor, when the analytics suggested they had an 83 percent chance of winning.

Earlier in this series against McDaniels and the T-Wolves, Denver flushed a 19-point lead at home.

Their bodies are strong. But their collective will? A fatal flaw.

The Timberwolves aren’t more talented than Denver. But they’re meaner.

Before the Nuggets could even think about pulling even with Minnesota in this best-of-seven series, they had to get mad.

And there for an instant, we saw a glimmer of playoff passion missing since the championship run three years ago.

The first meaningful angry instance of resistance by the Nuggets in this postseason wasn’t seen until Game 4.

Rudy Gobert drove the lane midway through the second quarter, lifted off the floor looking for an easy bucket and had his shot blocked by Denver guard Jamal Murray, who is 9 inches shorter than the Minnesota center.

The Nuggets yap endlessly about their championship DNA.

But those rings from 2023 don’t mean a thing without regular gritty displays of championship intensity.

This is not to suggest Denver is a physically soft team. My criticism, however, might be more damning: The Nuggets are often guilty of unearned arrogance.

From Oklahoma City to Boston, nobody in the league cares if Denver won a ring three years ago.

You’ve got to earn championship respect every game and prove it all night, not merely when your backs are against the wall and your season is on the brink.

With a rowdy crowd in the Target Center chanting “M-V-P!” to salute Dosunmu, who came off the bench to become a local legend, the Timberwolves blitzed Denver with a 17-7 run over the final six minutes of the third quarter to take an 82-78 lead.

The party was over.

The end of the most glorious era in Nuggets history was written all over Jokic’s face.

At the end of the period, Jokic stormed toward the Denver bench in disgust, walking straight past teammates unworthy of his greatness.

A fist clenched, Jokic looked at the arena floor, and shouted his protest into the void of a championship mojo that’s dead and gone.