Jamal Murray, Michael Porter Jr. take heat after Nuggets botch final possession in loss to Wizards

Tom Gatto

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Jamal Murray, Michael Porter Jr. take heat after Nuggets botch final possession in loss to Wizards image

The Nuggets had a great chance to, at a minimum, send their game Thursday against the Wizards to overtime. On the last possession of regulation, they had numbers and space for a wide-open, game-tying layup.

Instead, Denver settled for a transition 3-point try by Facundo Campazzo for the win that missed badly. Denver lost 112-110.

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The Nuggets took a 3 because:

— Jamal Murray picked up his dribble early on a 3-on-1 break and then had to pick from one of three Nuggets who had drifted to the 3-point line. (Monte Morris was a trailer.)

— One of those Nuggets behind the arc, an unguarded Michael Porter Jr., could have cut to the basket, but didn't.

Murray first tweeted that the play was on him and said that he should have shot:

And then he followed up with an alternate angle of the setup for the final play.

But Denver coach Mike Malone put it on Murray and Porter:

Twitter coaches had blame for both, as well:

If the Nuggets were only playing for the win in that instance, then they at least got an open look for Campazzo. But Washington's defense was badly beaten and a wide-open 2 was there for the taking. But Denver turned that down, and so now it's taking Ls in the standings, on social media and from Charles Barkley:

Tom Gatto

Tom Gatto Photo

Tom Gatto joined The Sporting News as a senior editor in 2000 after 12 years at The Herald-News in Passaic, N.J., where he served in a variety of roles including sports editor, and a brief spell at APBNews.com in New York, where he worked as a syndication editor. He is a 1986 graduate of the University of South Carolina.