To maintain their lead in the Western Conference standings, the Nuggets had to survive one final Wemby storm.

They could not.

In what could have been the final game of Victor Wembanyama’s Rookie of the Year season, the Nuggets kept him frustrated in the first half before transforming him into a flamethrower in the second. Denver couldn’t withstand the surge, losing their seeding on a Devonte’ Graham transition floater with 0.9 seconds left in a 121-120 loss Friday night at Frost Bank Center. It was Denver’s only setback in the second half, coming after Nikola Jokic missed an open foul line jumper.

“We had our chances,” Jokic explained. “I missed an open look on the final shot. It’s something I have to make. I missed, and they took a quick rest.”

The Spurs tallied 71 points in the second half.

“We didn’t defend at all,” coach Michael Malone explained. “… When they did miss in the fourth quarter, we handed up eight offensive rebounds for 13 points. So give San Antonio a lot of credit. They stuck with it. We were up by 23 at one point, but there were too many blow-bys, too many threes, and too many shot fakes that left us stumbling. There were a lot of things that did not go our way down the stretch.

The Nuggets (56-25) will now finish third due to a three-way tiebreaker if Denver, Minnesota, and Oklahoma City all win their final games Sunday. The Nuggets play in Memphis.

“It’s disappointing,” Malone explained. “Really disappointing.”

To reach to this position, a 23-point advantage in the third quarter had to be whittled down to six, setting up a frenetic fourth in which the clutch Nuggets eventually faltered against the poorest club in the West. It was 81-60 with 8:16 left in the third period. Then Wembanyama buried a pull-up triple. During a 26-9 Spurs run spanning four minutes and change, he scored 17 of 19 San Antonio points, including a trio of successive 3-pointers. The third was enough to trigger an aggravated Malone timeout. Reggie Jackson entered and handed it over for an eight-second violation.

Malone would take one more rage timeout during the quarter. The Nuggets responded better, scoring the final six points of the period. Role players were usually solid during Jokic’s recovery period, but the starters were sluggish on defense and missed open baskets. Jamal Murray was Denver’s most consistent source of offense throughout the game, scoring 35 points on 5-of-11 from outside the arc. Jokic had 14 points in the first quarter and eight for the rest of the game.

“If you remember last year, we did a kind of similar thing,” Jokic told reporters. “We lost to a couple of opponents (at the end of the regular season, including three consecutive away games). So it appears that we didn’t learn our lesson. But maybe the year needs to be repeated; the same thing happens, and hopefully we’ll win another title.”

Before the game, Malone made an interesting remark about meeting the lowly Spurs soon after defeating Minnesota on Wednesday in what may be Denver’s defining win of the regular season. “Do you kind of let go of the rope a little bit and say, ‘OK, San Antonio’s got eight guys out with injuries?'” he said. “Well, they have one guy playing.”

Malone’s reference to a specific player was obvious. It wasn’t Sandro Mamukelashvili, who scored nine points in the first quarter to give San Antonio the lead despite Jokic’s 14 on perfect shooting. In a vintage Jokic performance, he did not take a shot in the second quarter, which the Nuggets won by 19. They flourished by shutting down Wembanyama, who entered the intermission with 15 points on 14 shots, four turnovers, and his first career yapping-related technical penalty.

Aaron Gordon protected him skillfully, causing irritation. Before a Spurs baseline out-of-bounds play, the two were entangled, and Wembanyama collapsed. With Gordon standing over him, no foul was committed. Gordon withstood a Wembanyama push-off in the post following the subsequent inbound, and the possession ended in a turnover. By the end of the half, the rookie was visibly pumped up and poised for a big half.

“I think we just took our foot off the gas in terms of intensity,” Peyton Watson explained. “I feel like we felt like we were gonna win no matter what and there was no possible way that we could lose this game, which I don’t understand.”