Are the Nuggets trying to miss the playoffs?

The Denver Nuggets, fighting for their playoff lives after going all-in last summer, lost by 11 in Dallas on Tuesday. What’s worse is that coach Michael Malone benched Denver’s best player Nikola Jokic for the entire fourth quarter. It didn’t help much -- the Nuggets and Mavericks played to a stalemate in that period.

The margin for error in the West is incredibly small. It is a disaster if the Nuggets miss the playoffs, and at least one person if not the whole crew will be out of jobs if it happens. Given that the Nuggets will be forced to re-invest in this core this summer with Jokic’s weird free agency situation, the team needs to believe this core can at least very least get them into the playoffs.

You can’t lose games like this when everything is on the line. You just can’t.

PHI 128, CHA 114
ATL 90, TOR 106
MIA 113, WAS 117 (OT)
HOU 122, OKC 112
DEN 107, DAL 118
NYK 87, POR 111
BKN 101, GSW 114
NOP 121, LAC 116

A phenomenal, important piece in The Players’ Tribune from Kevin Love on panic attacks, mental health, and seeking help if you need it. Kudos to Love for opening up and kudos to The Players’ Tribune for offering an outlet where athletes feel comfortable opening themselves up like this to the benefit of everyone.

Big win for the Pelicans in Los Angeles. Anthony Davis had in-game x-rays and dropped 41 and 13. He’s unreal. Jrue Holiday had 17 and 17, too. Nine straight wins for the Birds.

The Blazers are one spot ahead of New Orleans in the standings, and won No. 8 in a row by smothering the Knicks. Here’s Zito Madu on the glory of watching Dame Time.

The Rockets won *No. 16* in a row by dismissing the Thunder. So much for OKC’s argument that they can win the West because they play extra well against the best teams. Speaking of Houston, Paul Flannery has seven reasons the Rockets are the team to beat and one reason they are not.

Those top four teams in the West -- the aforementioned three and the Warriors -- have won a combined 39 consecutive games.

It kind of looks like the Heat got screwed at the end of their close, playoff-implication-rich game against the Wizards.

Going to SXSW in Austin? Want to talk with us about the NBA stars of the future like DeAndre Ayton, Marvin Bagley, Michael Porter, and Trae Young? Join us at our Selection Sunday FUNday event on Sunday, March 11 from 6:30-7:30 p.m. local time. Vox Media is taking over The Belmont in downtown Austin to produce The Deep End, which includes events about Texas food from Eater and live tapings of The Ezra Klein Show, Recode Decode, and Vergecast. Sign up and learn more here. Shouts to our sponsors Nest, Tempur-Pedic, and Great Clips.

Let’s talk about some bad teams now. The Awful Eight went 1-2 on Tuesday. Dallas, the team that won, becomes the fifth squad with 20 wins. Only Memphis (18) and Phoenix (19) have fewer. The lottery has huge potential for pure chaos.

A member of the Awful Eight, the Chicago Bulls, received a note from the league office telling them they’d better stop benching healthy players for no good reason but to lose. The Bulls had pretty much announced that they weren’t going to play Robin Lopez and Justin Holiday much anymore. Welp.

A former NBA agent gave up his clients to pursue a pretty amazing dream: create a high-level professional league in Africa.

Ricky O’Donnell explores what March Madness would look like if all the NBA prospects stayed in college for four years.

Steve Kerr argues that the NCAA should allow players to return to college if they go undrafted. Well ... yes. That would be ideal. That said, the NCAA has gotten better about eligibility, widening the window during which players can “test the waters.” Also, logistically, undrafted players retaining eligibility could be a nightmare that results in programs withholding or retracting scholarships from lower-ranked incoming freshmen. It’s not super cut and dry. The best solution is probably one in which players can retain eligibility but the colleges make a decision in early June about whether they’ll accept them back if they go undrafted. That allows the colleges to move on if they like and keeps both sides aware of the stakes and the next steps if the draft comes up empty. This would be made a whole lot more simple if players were allowed to sign with agents without losing eligibility.

The Clippers have a new patch sponsor: Bumble, a “female empowerment” dating service where women have to make first contact. Nice work, Clips.

Meanwhile, Portland police investigated a sexual assault complaint against Mark Cuban in 2011. Cuban denied all allegations. No charges were brought due to a lack of corroborative evidence. Be advised that the story linked has graphic detail about alleged sexual assault. You may recall that the Mavericks organization has recently come under enormous, deserved fire for an abusive culture toward women. Cuban had denied knowing about all that.

ESPN’s Wednesday double-header features Raptors-Pistons at 8 p.m. ET and Cavaliers-Nuggets in a Crisis-Off at 10:30. Full schedule here.

Be excellent to each other.