![\"Nuggets,](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2270803703-e1775985218362.jpg\")
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGetty\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Head coach David Adelman of the Denver Nuggets watches as his tam plays the Oklahoma City Thunder during the third quarter at Ball Arena on April 10, 2026 in Denver, Colorado. <\/p>\n
The Denver Nuggets seemingly have no interest in holding onto a top-three seed heading into Sunday\u2019s regular-season finale against the San Antonio Spurs<\/a>, and instead seem intent on helping the Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> climb in the Western Conference standings.<\/p>\n On Saturday, the Nuggets shockingly announced that Nikola Jokic was questionable for the game against the Spurs, while Tim Hardaway<\/a> Jr., Jamal Murray, Aaron Gordon, Cam Johnson, Christian Braun, Peyton Watson, and\u00a0Spencer Jones<\/a>\u00a0were ruled out.<\/p>\n Jokic, who needs to play only 15 minutes<\/a> to remain eligible for end-of-season awards, is widely expected to log the required minutes and sit out.<\/p>\n If the Nuggets lose to the Spurs and the Lakers beat the lottery-bound Utah Jazz<\/a>, the latter will finish the regular season with the third seed.<\/p>\n Nuggets Fans Left Perplexed<\/p>\n Denver\u2019s decision to essentially tank the game against San Antonio triggered widespread reactions from its fanbase on social media.<\/p>\n \u201cCan someone explain what the Nuggets are doing?\u201d asked one fan.<\/p>\n \u201cThis makes no sense. What are we doing man,\u201d said another Nuggets fan.<\/p>\n By tanking for the third seed, the Nuggets are essentially setting themselves up for a second-round playoff matchup against the Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a>. One fan felt the decision not to cling to the third seed could backfire badly on David Adelman\u2019s team.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have to be brickheads,\u201d fumed a Nuggets fan.<\/p>\n \u201cMinnesota suck this year, Spurs are young and we can nullify Wemby\u2019s defense. And then we can get to OKC after they crawl out of a physical matchup with Houston. Playing OKC in round 2 is stupid.\u201d<\/p>\n How Lakers Benefit from Nuggets Loss<\/p>\n \u201cWhy would you throw away the 3 seed?\u201d asked one fan.<\/p>\n \u201cYou do realize you don\u2019t get to play the Lakers in the 1st round and will get OKC in the 2nd. Such a foolish strategy. Please don\u2019t tell me you are afraid of the Timberwolves<\/a> in the 1st round.\u201d<\/p>\n As the fan highlighted, the Nuggets will avoid a first-round matchup with the Timberwolves by dropping to the fourth seed. In such a scenario, the Lakers will face the Timberwolves instead of the Houston Rockets<\/a> in a 4 vs. 5 matchup.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also worth noting that the Spurs will benefit by beating the Nuggets on Sunday, as they\u2019d avoid a matchup with Nikola Jokic and Co. in the second round of the playoffs.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Spurs now have huge incentive to go beat Denver on Sunday. Why? Because a Nuggets loss combined with Lakers win vs. Utah could drop Denver to 4th seed and elevate the Lakers to 3rd in a tight seeding race,\u201d Dusty Garza wrote on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThis bracket manipulation avoids a direct second round clash with Denver while OKC would most likely have to face each other in the second round.\u201d<\/p>\n \ud83d\ude2e The Spurs now have huge incentive to go beat Denver on Sunday.<\/p>\n Why? Because a Nuggets loss combined with Lakers win vs. Utah could drop Denver to 4th seed and elevate the Lakers to 3rd in a tight seeding race.<\/p>\n This bracket manipulation avoids a direct second round clash with <\/p>\n According to ESPN\u2019s Tim Bontemps<\/a>, the Spurs plan to go full throttle against the Nuggets and don\u2019t intend to rest their star players, even though Victor Wembanyama, Stephon Castle and Devin Vassell<\/a> are listed as questionable<\/a> entering the game.<\/p>\n \ud83d\udea8 The Denver starters outside of Jokic are all OUT tomorrow in San Antonio, per the Nuggets <\/p>\n The Lakers are now HUGE favorites to get the 3 seed tomorrow \ud83d\udc40 <\/p>\n \n\t\t\tSai Mohan<\/a> covers the NBA for Heavy.com. Based in Portugal, Sai is a seasoned sports writer with nearly two decades of publishing experience, including bylines at Yardbarker, FanSided’s Hoops Habit, International Business Times, Hindustan Times and more. More about Sai Mohan<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tMore Heavy on Nuggets\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\tLoading more stories\n\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty Head coach David Adelman of the Denver Nuggets watches as his tam plays the Oklahoma City Thunder…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":708875,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3790],"tags":[7,4034,1698,300,4044,251,150,4033,4043,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-708874","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-lakers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-la","10":"tag-la-lakers","11":"tag-lakers","12":"tag-lalakers","13":"tag-los-angeles","14":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","15":"tag-losangeles","16":"tag-losangeleslakers","17":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116391170913086358","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=708874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/708875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=708874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=708874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=708874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}