The NBA Playoffs Are a Lesson in How to Accept When It’s Over

There is a German word, torschlusspanik, that translates to “gate closing panic.” It is, essentially, the frantic feeling that time has run out, the opportunity has passed, the gate is slamming shut. While often used to describe worries like missing the chance for career advancement, having children, or getting married, every year during the NBA playoffs it can also easily be applied to the teams that must accept their inferiority.

While he grew up in a different part of Europe, I wonder if Nikola Jokić is familiar with the phrase. During his Denver Nuggets’ first-round series against the Minnesota Timberwolves, the 31-year-old Serbian star has been abruptly confronted with the gate. It is rapidly shutting on his team’s chances of advancing, as the Timberwolves took commanding control of the series with an assertive win on Saturday night to go up 3-1. But the gate is also swinging closed for Jokić himself, threatening to crush his long-held status as the best player in the world.

This sobering encounter with reality—the feeling that, despite one’s best efforts, you’re most likely cooked—is not reserved just for basketball behemoths. In life, we all have come to realize that a relationship, a job, a city, a whatever, is no longer fitting right. Life off the court leaves a little more wiggle room; being down 3-1 in a series—knowing that you have to win three times before the opponent wins once—is generally going to be a greater pressure than figuring out how to exit a friendship or sell a beloved car. But we all know the flashbulb moment—the one game, one conversation, one cuttingly-worded text message—that tells you things are beyond repair.

For Jokić and the Nuggets, the angel of death was Ayo Dosunmu, the linchpin of Minnesota’s bench, who exploded for 43 points in Game 4 of the teams’ highly-anticipated matchup. No matter what Jokić and his trusty sidekick Jamal Murray did, no matter how much power they drew from their shared championship experience, Dosunmu and the Wolves made damn sure the gate closed on their opponents. While the Nuggets can make all of this irrelevant with a comeback for the ages, the crushing weight of both math and history are not on their side. A piddly 4% of teams to ever fall into the 3-1 hole have ever successfully climbed out. Beyond that, the way the Nuggets ended up in that hole is more telling than anything. Dropping the pivotal Game 4 to a Minnesota squad that played without Anthony Edwards and Donte DiVincenzo for the entire second half due to leg injuries made things all the more depressing. Losing to a team that didn’t have its starting backcourt for the most critical stretch of the game is the Nuggets’ version of realizing that no amount of thoughtful gifts, romantic getaways, or good-faith counseling could save the marriage.