Denver Nuggets coach David Adelman has backed Nikola Jokic to "bounce back" after a poor shooting game saw the Minnesota Timberwolves take a 2-1 lead in the playoffs.

The Timberwolves ran out 113-96 winners in Game 3 on Thursday, with the Nuggets failing to reach 100 points for the first time since January.

Jokic, who has led Denver to a historic offensive season, finished with 27 points and 15 rebounds, but had statistically the worst shooting game of his playoffs career.

He missed 19 of his 26 shots, while the Nuggets went 3-of-21 shooting in an 11-point first quarter, their lowest-scoring quarter of the season.

This was the first time in Jokic's career that he attempted at least 26 shots in a game and made only seven or fewer, while he also had four turnovers to three assists.

"He had a tough night," Adelman said. "It happens to players.

"This guy's played a million playoff games. There's nights that are poor. He'll bounce back. Everyone needs a day to understand we didn't play well offensively.

"I think to get [the role players] going, they have to screen better. If you can free up your best players, that's going to bring rotations. That's going to bring a low man. That leads to ball movement 3s."

Final pic.twitter.com/Etc8yvQ44d

— Denver Nuggets (@nuggets) April 24, 2026

Jokic is 5-of-24 on 3s in this series, while Jamal Murray, who finished with 16 points, made only five of his 17 shots and missed all five 3-pointers.

The Serbian also struggled in Game 2, missing the chance to close it out, with the Nuggets outscored by 10 points in the final seven minutes, with Jokic missing six of his seven shots.

And Jokic was less than impressed with what the Nuggets showed in Game 3.

"When you open the game like that, the easy ones don't go," Jokic said.

"Really good defensive [first] quarter by them, really bad offensive quarter by us."