Author: reporter

Before they tipped off against Indiana, the Nuggets attempted to embrace their self-created predicament by spinning it as a catalyst to play hard.The playoffs were beginning early.Their only choice after that didn’t work is to try again with the same messaging.“We said that today. We were approaching it as, you know, it’s playoff time,” Christian Braun said after Denver’s 125-120 loss on Sunday. “Maybe in the last couple years, we could kind of coast a little bit. Not this year. It’s playoff time now. … These last three — we said last four — but these last three, we have…

The Chase Dollander era began at Coors Field Sunday afternoon, with mixed results.The Rockies’ right-hander, considered one of the top pitching prospects in franchise history, pitched five innings, giving up four runs on seven hits, including two home runs. The Rockies were leading 7-4 when Dollander left the game.Dollander, who flashed a 99.3 mph fastball and an assortment of breaking pitches, struck out six. He walked only one.However, he was hurt by the long ball. Tyler Soderstrom, the A’s cleanup hitter, hit a two-run, 386-foot homer to right field off Dollander in the first inning. Lawrence Butler led off the…

TAMPA, Fla. — UConn is back on top of women’s basketball, winning its 12th national championship by routing defending champion South Carolina 82-59 on Sunday behind Azzi Fudd’s 24 points.Sarah Strong added 24 points and 15 rebounds while Paige Bueckers had 17 points in her final game at UConn (37-3).“Well, it’s amazing to have three players, three people like that on the same team,” UConn coach Geno Auriemma said. “And Sarah, you would think Sarah was graduating the way she plays, right? All three of them complement each other so well. They all have such unique skill sets.”Bueckers capped her…

Jamal Murray has been listed as questionable on the Nuggets’ injury reports lately, but that’s evidently more of a long-term assessment than an immediate one.Murray will “hopefully” be available for the start of the NBA playoffs if Denver makes it that far, coach Michael Malone said Sunday afternoon before the Nuggets hosted the Pacers.“Jamal’s hurt. It’s not careful. He’s hurt,” Malone said when asked how careful the team is being with Murray by withholding him from games. “So there’s a big difference. Careful is if a guy can play and you want to be smart. We’re not in a situation…

Chase The Ace? He’s got the face. And the pace.“I was pumped up. I just tried my best to keep it kind of low-key a little bit,” Chase Dollander, the Rockies’ brightest pitching hope since Kyle Freeland, said after winning his MLB debut at Coors Field Sunday. “But at times you kind of have to let it eat. And once I got settled, it was really fun.”Watching Dollander pitch is the most fun you can have sober at 20th and Blake, at least until Zac Veen officially joins the party. His four-seam fastball during a 12-5 thrashing of the (TBD)…

The Nuggets are staring their own mortality in the face.They have lost four games in a row for the first time this season, and at the worst time, after a 125-120 defeat to the Indiana Pacers on Sunday.With Jamal Murray out for the fifth consecutive game and Michael Porter Jr. struggling to cash his 3-point shot, Nikola Jokic did everything within his power to give Denver a chance: 41 points, 15 rebounds, 13 assists and two steals. Christian Braun added a career-high 30 points, leading a comeback effort from down 10 in the fourth quarter.It wasn’t enough. Jokic overthrew Russell…

Colorado has a low rate of cesarean sections compared to the rest of the nation, but some of the state’s hospitals perform surgical deliveries at three times the rate as others.Numbers alone can’t confirm whether hospitals are doing unnecessary C-sections, but some facilities have confirmed they see a need for a culture shift to help keep labor moving.About 22% of low-risk, first-time mothers in Colorado ended up having a cesarean in 2023, the seventh-lowest rate in the country, according to data from Leapfrog Group, which rates the quality of health care. But individual hospitals’ rates ranged from one in 10…

Editor’s note: The opinions of the smart, well-read women in my Denver book club mean a lot, and often determine what the rest of us choose to pile onto our bedside tables. So we asked them, and all Denver Post readers, to share their mini-reviews with you. Have any to offer? Email bellis@denverpost.com.“The Oathbreakers,” by Matthew Gabriele and David M. Perry (Harper, 2024)“The Oathbreakers,” by Matthew Gabriele and David M. Perry (Harper, 2024)The authors examine a wide range of historical sources, including contemporary accounts, letters, court documents and even medieval poetry to depict what led to the downfall of Charlemagne’s…

James Garner, seen here in an undated photo, was convicted of a 2009 bar shooting, but claims he is innocent and was misidentified by witnesses. (Photo provided by Korey Wise Innocence Project) A Colorado man imprisoned for 15 years says he was wrongly convicted of a triple shooting inside an Adams County bar because of faulty eyewitness identification. James Garner, 51, is challenging his conviction with help from the Korey Wise Innocence Project. He claims that three witnesses misidentified him as the shooter in a crowded bar and that new science around the unreliability of eyewitness identification should invalidate his…

Everybody loves the truth. Except when it is about them.This is what makes Carter King different. When DU hockey coaches recruited him, he heard exactly what he wanted to hear, no words spared.“The coaches were honest with me right from the start. They let me know where I stood, what I needed to improve on to even have a chance to play. That’s something that I really appreciated, and it helped me,” King said before a recent practice. “Every day was about trying to prove to them that I deserved opportunities.”This is a story about what you have to do…