Nuggets-Thunder was one of the most lopsided seven game series in history

The Denver Nuggets and Oklahoma City Thunder played arguably the most exciting series of the playoffs so far as the Thunder beat the Nuggets in seven games to advance to the Western Conference Finals. There were a handful of great moments, such as Aaron Gordon’s game-winning 3-pointer in Game 1 and Nikola Jokic’s Sombor Shuffle to tie Game 5, but the final point total of the series looks a little different.

Overall, OKC dominated this series. pic.twitter.com/eRMUhAjobj

— Nate Duncan (@NateDuncanNBA) May 18, 2025

Oklahoma City didn’t dominate the majority of the series. The Nuggets blew a fourth quarter lead in Games 4 and 5 and were blown out in Games 2 and 7. In fact, in the five games other than the blowouts, the point differential was actually +11 in favor of Denver. What went wrong in those two that flipped the series so heavily?

In the two blowouts, Scott Foster was the crew chief officiating the game each time, one of the most infamous officials in the league. Oklahoma City took advantage of the physicality allowed by the longtime official, and with their home fans backing them up every time they forced a turnover from Denver, they were able to continue growing the lead more and more. Denver committed 21 turnovers in Game 2 and 23 in Game 7. The Thunder had nine and 10 in those games, respectively.

In each of those games, the Thunder were making a lot of contact defensively with Denver, but were not being whistled for it like they were in other contests, especially the ones in Denver.

Not disagreeing with you as jokic is looking for contact but they are allowing Caruso to hook, grab his jersey and impede jokic from moving which is supposed to be a foul at every level. pic.twitter.com/N2VECU0BYt

— Jason Steigleman (@jwsteigleman) May 18, 2025

Good for Caruso. If the officials are going to allow that level of contact, both teams need to take advantage. Oklahoma City jumped at the bit while Denver waited around for a whistle to go in their favor. Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. crumbled at the sign of physicality, just like how they did against Minnesota last year when the same thing happened, and it hurt the Nuggets.

One thing that the score differential showed was that, despite going to seven games, the Nuggets were clawing and scratching for every single second of the series just to stay in it, while the Thunder were the better team and were able to pull away at multiple points.

The Nuggets, after losing in Game 7 of the Conference Semifinals for the second straight season, now head to the drawing board without a head coach or a general manager for the most important offseason in the Nikola Jokic era.

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