LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – The rain fell and the Jok­er pout­ed. The end of this humil­i­at­ing 124–87 play­off loss to Utah on Fri­day was a sad scene, paint­ed in gray tones of regret. As rain pud­dles formed on side­walks out­side the are­na, the Nuggets’ sea­son began to swirl down the drain.

For the first time in his remark­able, young NBA career, Nuggets cen­ter Niko­la Jokic faces the prospect of being a huge disappointment.

In a play­off game Den­ver des­per­ate­ly need­ed to win, Jok­er was 7 feet tall and near­ly invisible.

Skin­ny Jok­er got pushed around by Utah cen­ter Rudy Gob­ert. How could Jokic seem so dis­en­gaged, espe­cial­ly in a play­off game with so much on the line?

“That would be a great ques­tion for Niko­la,” Nuggets coach Michael Mal­one said.

As Jazz cen­ter Rudy Gob­ert dom­i­nat­ed at both ends of the floor, mak­ing 11-of-15 shots for 24 points while col­lect­ing 14 rebounds, Jokic stood back and ed.

I’ve nev­er thought these words before, much less typed them: The Jok­er was a joke.

Heav­en for­bid if John Elway or Pey­ton Man­ning ever stunk up a play­off game the way Jokic let the Nuggets fall into a sink­hole that feels mud­di­er than their 2–1 deficit in this best-of-sev­en series.

Although Jokic fin­ished with a respectable 15 points, he scored only a sin­gle bas­ket and took just two shots at the junc­ture this game was all over except the pout­ing, when Utah took a com­mand­ing 42–20 lead with sev­en min­utes, 29 sec­onds remain­ing in the sec­ond quarter.

Pas­sive Niko­la is bad Niko­la. For much of the open­ing half, Jokic’s most aggres­sive move was duck­ing out of the way of repeat­ed dunks by Gobert.

I asked Jok­er where his A‑game went.

“I took real­ly good shots. I just missed,” said Jokic. “I think (Gob­ert) is a great defend­er … He’s a great play­er. But I think I just missed shots.”

Gob­ert has also now bet­tered or matched Jokic’s scor­ing pro­duc­tion in eight of their 17 career meet­ings, which has seen Utah win 10 times.

Near the end of the third quar­ter, Jokic made a care­less pass toward the top of the key. As Jazz guard Dono­van Mitchell inter­cept­ed the bas­ket­ball and took off for a dunk that put Utah ahead by 30 points, Jokic threw back his head in exas­per­a­tion. Jokic had quit on the game with­out a fight as cer­tain­ly as he had giv­en away a turnover.

I was an eye-wit­ness to this abom­i­na­tion, from a social­ly dis­tanced seat in the front row of Sec­tion 201 inside the Sports House of the Mouse. Even while wear­ing a mask, it was pos­si­ble to detect the stench of Denver’s per­for­mance from my seat in the balcony.

This lop­sided loss, which often seemed to be noth­ing except an end­less high­light reel of uncon­test­ed 3‑point shots and layups by the Jazz, was even ugli­er to behold in per­son than on television.

“How do you know? Did you it on TV?” argued Nuggets fan David Lakes, chal­leng­ing my asser­tion. “It was beyond ugly. I switched the TV over to a 25-year-old episode of ‘Law & Order.’ ”

The game tipped off short­ly after 4 p.m. in Flori­da. Oth­er than Jamal Mur­ray, who played as if the thought of los­ing back-to-back games against Utah made him furi­ous, the Nuggets act­ed like a bunch of guys want­i­ng to go find half-price appe­tiz­ers dur­ing hap­py hour.

Mur­ray seethed in defeat. “I think we have a tar­get on our back,” he repeat­ed­ly said, with arms crossed defen­sive­ly across his chest, futile­ly try­ing to con­ceal pain in his heart dur­ing a postgame Zoom conference.

Their rise to play­off con­tender in 2019 was full of hope and opti­mism, even when San Anto­nio took them to the lim­it in the first round. This year feels dif­fer­ent, with Den­ver bur­dened with the weight of expectation.

Den­ver arrived at the NBA bub­ble more than a month ago, banged up and dis­joint­ed, with prepa­ra­tion time for rough­ly half its ros­ter dis­rupt­ed by COVID-19 issues. The Nuggets treat­ed eight games in advance of the play­offs on the Dis­ney cam­pus more like exhi­bi­tion games, with Mal­one sac­ri­fic­ing any chance at vic­to­ry by rest­ing his best play­ers in the fourth quar­ter more than once.

“I think we give in too eas­i­ly,” Mal­one said. “Our group has to be a lot more men­tal­ly tough.”

On a team that has tried to con itself into believ­ing this is a legit­i­mate title con­tender, Mal­one will feel the heat if he doesn’t fig­ure out a way for the Nuggets to win this series.

To be fair, Den­ver also found itself down 2–1 in the open­ing round against the Spurs a year ago, but didn’t lose two games by any­where near the 56 total points in these two blowouts by Utah.

If the Nuggets are to have any chance of a come­back, it doesn’t start with coach­ing strat­e­gy. It must begin with Jokic declar­ing him­self the best play­er on the floor.

If the Nuggets can’t find the Jok­er we know and love, they have no shot.