The Denver Nuggets' season has been put on the brink of its end by the Oklahoma City Thunder after OKC overturned another fourth quarter deficit en route to taking a 112-105 win in Game 5. The Nuggets lost all offensive rhythm by the time the fourth quarter came along, and the heavy minutes appear to be catching up to them after playing such a short rotation all playoffs long. Nikola Jokic, Christian Braun, and Jamal Murray played 44, 43, and 42 minutes, respectively.

And the minutes that Jokic and Murray play are high-effort, high-energy ones; they run the Nuggets' offense, and in Game 5, they scored 72 of the Nuggets' 105 points. At some point, the Nuggets' role players will have to step up. Michael Porter Jr. has gone 2-14 over his past two games, Russell Westbrook was barfing up airballs on Tuesday night, while Braun, someone who's typically efficient from the field, went 3-12 in Game 5.

Everything will be moot if Jokic and Murray fail to produce at a high level in Game 6. But for the Nuggets to rescue their season and overcome a 3-2 series deficit against the 68-win Thunder, Charles Barkley remarked that they will need this bundle of energy to show up.

“I'd throw Russ out there anytime. ‘Coz his energy level is just incredible. He might make a mistake, but he's going to give me everything. I don't know if he ever gets tired,” Barkley said on the Nuggets-Thunder postgame edition of TNT's Inside the NBA.

Westbrook, of course, gives it his all, especially now that he's playing limited minutes off the Nuggets bench. His hustle, energy, and defensive work rate aren't to be questioned at all.

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But Nuggets head coach David Adelman has mostly done a good job of knowing when to rely on Westbrook and when not to. In Game 5, Westbrook's jumpshot was out of sorts; he went 1-7 from the field and missed all three of his three-point attempts, all of which weren't even close.

Nuggets' supporting cast has to wake up

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The bread and butter of the Nuggets' offense is the two-man game between Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray. But that is rendered moot if the team's supporting cast couldn't make their shots when it mattered. With the Thunder defense zeroing in on Jokic and Murray in the final minutes of the game, Denver couldn't buy a bucket — with Michael Porter Jr. missing a three that could have tied the game.

Perhaps in Game 6, with the Nuggets being at home, the team's role players will have an easier time shooting the ball, which would then provide Jokic and Murray with the ample space to operate and do their damage.