All hope was lost already.
25 games in, the Denver Nuggets were staring a 9-16 record in the face last year. Coming off a six game road trip, they went 2-4 during that stretch and had lost eight of their last 11 games. The starting lineup was repeatedly putting the team in a hole to begin the game, and while the bench occasionally brought them back into the contest and even came out victorious a couple times, it didn’t matter in the long term. The team was simply bad. Game after game, things just didn’t work the way they were supposed to work.