One of the classic tales of sports is playing out in the southwest right now, with the talent-filled up-and-comer matching up against the experienced champion. That’s the story of the NBA’s top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder against the 2023 winners from Denver.

But how does this inexperience actually impact a team in an NBA playoff game? We saw it from Chet Holmgren on Monday while the Nuggets surged to a 19-6 close on the back of an Aaron Gordon winner to take Game 1.

The former second overall pick in his second season playing in the NBA. The series opener against the Nuggets was just his 15th career playoff game. The stats and most of the tape will tell you that the big was good, scoring 12 points, collecting six rebounds and swatting four shots. But when things got tight down the stretch, the 23-year-old Gonzaga product came up short.

In the fourth quarter, Holmgren had some loud mistakes. He missed a transition dunk, wide wide-open corner three, the two decisive free throws and lost Gordon on his final shot.

“I have to be better. I’m not one to shy from accountability,” Holmgren said after the game. “I have to be better. I have to execute better, especially down the stretch. We worked too hard as a collective, and we’re too far along in this thing for situations like that to happen.”

The Thunder won 68 games this season, they’re one of just eight teams to accomplish that mark, and five in the past have won the championship. When Holmgren played and his fellow big Isaiah Hartenstein did too, OKC only lost four games this season. History tells us, as does OKC’s second-best NET rating ever, that the Thunder are a fantastic team. It was their shortcomings, questionable strategy and inability to meet the Nuggets’ mettle that saw them toss away a double-digit lead late.

Holmgren himself picked up a fifth foul which seriously hampered the Thunder’s defense because Hartenstein, too, had five. But both came up way short on the glass, where the Nuggets out-rebounded the Thunder by 20.

Maybe worried about the wrong things, multiple OKC players attacked Jokic, trying to get a sixth foul called on the three-time MVP rather than focus on making baskets. One of those plays was Holmgren’s missed jam on the break, where Jokic baited him into thinking contact was coming.

On the defensive side, Hartenstein gave Jokic a bit of resistance, but there was almost none from Holmgren. Jokic went eight for 13 when matched up against the skinny big man. And Joker got rolling in the fourth, scoring 18 of his 42 there while accounting for the difference in rebounding himself with 22 windexs.

Again, worried about the wrong things, the Thunder extended the game late by fouling when up three. It gave one of the best offensive players in league history more time to mount a comeback, all the while, OKC admitted they couldn’t trust their league-leading defense to simply not give up a three. A worry they were proved right to have.

With about 10 seconds left, the Thunder put the 75% free-throw shooter Holmgren into the game. And with some stifling Jokic defense on an inbounds, the ball went to Chet instead of the expected MVP and one of the league’s best free-throw shooters in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Holmgren missed them both.

So the Nuggets had it on the run down one and Holmgren left Gordon because he was worried about the wrong thing again, Russell Westbrook’s drive. The former MVP kicked it out right to where Holmgren had been and Gordon made Nuggets history for the win.

Everyone knows a young team has to take lumps on its way to the top. Maybe Thunder fans can take solace in the fact that a lesson was taught in Game 1. But how can you be so sure the message was received?

The Oklahoman notes postgame, “Holmgren shrugged at the idea that Denver’s championship mettle played a role in its comeback. For all the players OKC can willingly and confidently thrust into a game, only one likely had the bandwidth to recognize why the Thunder’s decay coincided with the Nuggets’ rise.” The paper then points at former champion Alex Caruso, who scored 20 points off the bench as somebody with experience.

Very different than the Nuggets, who have a core of players who have all been there and done that and maybe that’s why the Nuggets did just that in Game 1.