Have you ever anticipated being on the receiving end of a good old-fashioned butt kicking?

Maybe you were in high school, preparing to play a game of basketball the day after a random stomach virus. Maybe you were in college, getting ready to face a team from a division and talent level far well beyond your own.

Maybe you were a twelve-year-old fresh off the success of sneaking a whoopie cushion full of chocolate pudding into the chair of your least favorite teacher.

If you can in any way relate to these completely hypothetical and not at all real examples above, I imagine you’d also be able to relate to that hanging sense of dread.

When you’re in trouble as a kid (and I mean really in trouble), no amount of fellow middle-schoolers calling a hated teacher ‘pudding pants’ is going to remove that sense of certainty from the pit of your stomach.

You’re in trouble, and you know it. The only real question left is: how bad is it gonna be?

I imagine that’s a question taking up a lot of space in the minds of a Spurs team split between tanking out the rest of a lost season, and doing their best to maintain a certain degree of self-respect.

Fresh off of their 5th straight loss, the Spurs just cannot find daylight, facing a parade of good teams still jockeying for playoff position.

The Spurs organizationally seem more or less happy to appease the loss column at this point of the season, but you have to feel for the players who must have finally felt like they were seeing the daylight of relevance before losing their best player for the season.

And now they’ll have to trudge their way up to the mile-high city on the 2nd night of a back-to-back (always a delight for lungs not accustomed to the altitude) and take on a Denver team that just lost in 2nd overtime, trying to hold onto a top 4 seed amidst the standings of an perpetually cutthroat Western Conference.

Normally, this would be an awe-inspiring showdown between talented European behemoths. Normally, with Denver banged up and on a back-to-back of their own, this might feel like a game that could be stolen from a team with championship aspirations.

Instead, the Spurs will be facing a ticked-off Nuggets team who need every inch of separation they can get, and a Nikola Jokić in such good form that he just pulled off just the third sixty-point triple-double in NBA history.

I’m doing my best to look for ways that the Spurs could conceivably steal this one, but the math just isn’t mathing.

Sometimes you just have to face the music, put on a brave expression, and blame another classmate. I don’t think that’s going to work here, though.

Here’s hoping for a miracle.

San Antonio Spurs at Denver Nuggets

April 2nd, 2025 | 8:00 CT

Watch: FanDuel Sports Network Southwest | Listen: WOAI (1200 AM)

Spurs Injuries: Victor Wembanyama – Out (Regenerating Kaiju), DeAaron Fox – Out (Hand), Charles Bassey – Day-to-Day (Knee)

Nuggets Injuries: Nikola Jokic – Day-to-Day (Ankle), Jamal Murray – Day-to-Day (Hamstring), Aaron Gordon – Day-to-Day (Illness/Leg), Christian Braun – Day-to-Day (Foot), Julian Strawther – Out (Knee), DaRon Holmes – Out (Achilles)

For the Nuggets’ fan’s perspective, please visit Denver Stiffs.

PtR’s Game thread will be up this evening for those who want to chat through the game. You can also follow along with the action through PtR’s Twitter feed.