OKC is punting Nuggets matchup, does Denver want to win?

Welcome to the strangest weekend of the NBA, where wins can be losses for teams looking for victory in playoff matchup manipulation rather than in the regular season games.

Every team in the Western Conference’s top five is running its own private game of chess — except the Lakers, who are just trying to survive — and the hottest team in basketball, the Denver Nuggets, might be the only one that actually wants to win… or do they?

The Nuggets have won 10 straight. Twenty-two days ago they were sixth in the West. Now they’re 52-28 with a magic number of two for the three seed and two games left: OKC on Friday, at San Antonio on Sunday.

The Thunder clinched the No. 1 overall seed Wednesday night. The Spurs locked into the two the same evening. And now look at Oklahoma City’s injury report for Friday’s game at Ball Arena.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is out with right oblique injury management. Chet Holmgren is out with low back spasms. Isaiah Hartenstein is out with left soleus injury management. Alex Caruso is out for rest. Jalen Williams is out with right hamstring injury management. Ajay Mitchell, Cason Wallace, and Isaiah Joe are all out as well.

That’s almost the entire rotation. OKC is sending the junior varsity to Denver on a night that could clinch the Nuggets’ postseason positioning, if results elsewhere go the Nuggets way.

Convenient, isn’t it?

If the Thunder lose Friday — and they should — Denver clinches at least the four seed and moves within one game of locking up the three. Think about what that means for OKC’s bracket. If Denver gets the three, the Nuggets land on San Antonio’s side. If Denver slips to four, they’re on OKC’s side in the second round. The defending champs have every incentive to hand Denver this game, forcing the Nuggets and Spurs to duke it out in the second round and that’s exactly what OKC is doing.

The Rockets won Thursday night, and a banged-up Lakers team won in Golden State. Los Angeles isn’t playing bracket chess — they’re just depleted. Luka Doncic is out with a left hamstring strain, Austin Reaves with a left oblique muscle strain. Both the Rockets and Lakers are right behind Denver in the standings. The Nuggets cannot afford to slip if they want No. 3

On the Denver side for Friday, Nikola Jokic is questionable with right wrist injury management, Aaron Gordon is questionable with right hamstring injury management, and Jamal Murray is questionable with right shoulder impingement. All three designations hint, “we’ll play them if we need to, but we’d rather not.” Given OKC’s skeleton crew, the Nuggets might be able to rest their stars and still grab the W — the best possible outcome for a team riding a 10-game heater into the playoffs. But it’s also a sign that the Nuggets might want to drop to four.

Minnesota is locked into six and will play the three seed. The Nuggets have been better against the Wolves lately but in recent years those matchups have been physical and have scared Denver. Whereas the four seed may play either the injured Lakers or a Rockets team that has scuffled much of the second half until their current eight-game win streak.

Or the injury designations could be that the Nuggets needed to send an injury report to the league earlier in the evening before they found out the results of Thursday’s games. With the math not changing, the big trio could be a go.

Then comes Sunday in San Antonio. The Spurs are locked in at two regardless, but don’t think for a second they aren’t aware of the math. A Spurs win over Denver on the final day pushes the Nuggets toward the four seed and onto OKC’s side of the bracket, keeping a surging Denver team off San Antonio’s playoff path. Victor Wembanyama is questionable Friday against Dallas with a left rib contusion — he needs to play 20 minutes in one more game to reach the 65-game rule and claim his Defensive Player of the Year. Will they play him against the Mavs or the Nuggets? Which is a more telling sign of what the team will want to do competitively?

So what should Denver want? The three seed means home court in the first round, an opening series against Minnesota, and a potential second-round date with the Spurs. The four seed means Houston in round one and a collision course with the Thunder in the second round. That path is tough either way — but home court matters and if the Nuggets don’t go all out for the three, they could risk falling down to the five and missing home court altogether.

The bottom line: take care of business Friday against OKC’s bench mob, rest whoever you can, and ride what would be an 11-game streak into Sunday with the hope of a Lakers and Rockets loss in back-to-backs on Friday night — which would mean a clinch and rest.

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