David Adelman’s coaching rite of passage wasn’t quite enough to spark an improbable Nuggets comeback.

Arguing calls in what he felt like was “a reactionary game to earlier in the week” when Rockets coach Ime Udoka insulted the referees after a loss to Denver, Adelman earned his first career ejection as an NBA head coach Saturday. Houston won the grudge match, 115-101, snapping Denver’s six-game winning streak.

The Nuggets (20-7) shot 40% from the field and 28% outside the arc in their lowest-scoring game of the season — an anomaly of a performance from the league’s best offense. But their defense was stingy enough to stay in the game for most of three quarters. Then Rockets guard Reed Sheppard executed an 11-0 run single-handedly to finish the third with an 82-66 lead. Denver kept scrapping but never fully recovered.

The margin was 17 with 8:40 to go when Adelman took exception to a no-call in front of his bench, watching Nikola Jokic attempt to play through a crowd. The first-year Nuggets coach angrily confronted the officiating crew out to mid-court even after being handed his second technical foul, which automatically results in an ejection.

“It seemed like he just kept walking away further and further,” Adelman said, laughing. “I just thought we would talk, and it turns out, they told me I had to leave.”

He received a raucous ovation from a sold out Ball Arena crowd as walked off the court to the locker room.

“I just felt like both teams were playing so hard, extremely hard. Physical,” Adelman said. “I give the Rockets so much credit. They crash the glass every time. And then we get two somewhat soft fouls on our best player. … Honestly, I was confused, and so I was just looking for answers. And I went out there to find them, and it turns out I had to leave. Sometimes, confusion can lead to destructive things. You’ve gotta think things through yourself sometimes. You go to other people, and sometimes they just don’t want to hear you.”

Jokic was held to 25 points on 20 shots and five assists while spending a large chunk of the afternoon sidelined due to foul trouble. Jamal Murray scored 16 points on 13 field goal attempts. Denver’s end-of-bench players briefly threatened to turn the game upside down in garbage time before Houston held on.

Sheppard went for 28 points, six assists and three steals on a 6-for-9 day from 3-point range. He was outdone only by Kevin Durant, who scored 31 and shot 5 for 6 from deep.

After only four days away, the Rockets returned to Denver with every reason to treat this game with playoff-level seriousness — not just due to the overtime thriller that left Udoka fuming, but because they also squandered a mid-week opportunity to bounce back against the lowly Pelicans.

It had been a costly week for them already, not to mention the $25,000 fine Udoka incurred on Monday for saying two refs “didn’t have any business being out there” and the crew chief appeared “star-struck.”

Adelman brought a chip on his shoulder to the arena Saturday even before opening tip.

“We were minus-10 in personal fouls with five minutes to go in the fourth quarter (on Monday). Both of our centers fouled out,” Adelman pointed out in his pregame news conference. “I know the narrative was the opposite, which is fine. I know I had no centers at the end of the game. So things work in weird ways. This game will be just as physical.”

He decided to take his turn chewing out the refs in the first quarter, working hard to earn a technical after Jokic was forced to sit down with two fouls. Both were called on loose balls while fighting for a rebound.

The officiating trio was headed by Marc Davis, who was also the crew chief for the playoff game two years ago when Murray threw a heat pack on the court in frustration.

“Marc is one of the best officials in the league. I thought the other guys, they did the best they could,” Adelman said. “I just felt, like I said, I was confused with the flow of the game. I’ve gotta be better than that, too. That game wasn’t over. I let the emotions get the best of me. But when you care abut your players and you feel a certain way, sometimes, you react.”

Houston made the Nuggets burn energy and clock just to get into their actions. Murray, whose offense has been consistently efficient, ran into one of his first clunky games of the year. Generating clean looks in the half-court offense was laborious. Often, Denver’s safest bet was to clear out a side for Jokic to play in isolation. But he struggled with the late double-teams Houston often sent to him. Durant played excellent help defense, as he did Monday.

Jokic picked up his fourth foul with 7:18 left in the third. Adelman decided to sit him for the rest of the quarter and have him ready to play the entire fourth, but that required a difficult survival game without him. Houston was already ahead by double digits.

The Nuggets almost weathered the storm. Morale was high and the margin was 71-66 shortly after Bruce Brown scored a second-chance bucket and chirped at Durant, his former teammate. But all it took was one heat check from Sheppard, and the gap was too wide.

“We had a game plan, that we were kind of down (the floor). Bigs were down,” Jokic said. “… When he makes one or two, that’s his superpower. That’s his thing. He’s gonna shoot more.”

Brown said after the game that Durant had crossed a line with his trash-talk during the game. Both players declined to get into the specifics of what was said. Durant seemed to relish getting a last laugh of sorts. He gleefully waved Adelman goodbye after the ejection and eventually treated Ball Arena to a cheeky celebration after burying a fourth-quarter 3-pointer over Murray.

More than halfway into his first term, Mayor Mike Johnston finally met with his own Bicycle Advisory Committee and reiterated a familiar promise: Denver can increase road safety without taking any convenience away from drivers. “We want this to be a city where it is safe and easy to get around by bike or by foot,” Johnston told Westword after the meeting. “We want to build infrastructure and a culture that makes that easier, and we think we can do that without making it more difficult for drivers.”

The mayor is wrong. If Denver is serious about making our streets safer for everyone — people driving as well as people walking, biking, rolling or taking transit — then we have to be honest about what that requires. Real safety improvements will sometimes mean slowing cars down, reallocating space or asking drivers to take a slightly longer route. In other words, we must be willing to trade a bit of convenience for a lot of safety.

We already make this trade-off all the time. Parking in front of the fire hydrant across from my house would be extremely convenient, but I don’t do it because it would put my neighbors at risk if a fire broke out. I don’t enjoy going through security screening every time I attend a Denver City Council meeting, but I accept it because it keeps a critical public forum safe. These small inconveniences are simply part of living in a community where everyone’s well-being matters.

So why is the idea of asking drivers to accept minimal inconvenience — a few extra minutes, a block or two of walking from their parking spot to their final destination — treated as politically impossible, even when it could prevent deaths and life-altering injuries?

Denver committed to Vision Zero nearly a decade ago, pledging to eliminate traffic fatalities. Yet year after year, the death toll remains stubbornly high, topping eighty lives lost annually since the pandemic. The reason is not mysterious: City leaders have consistently prioritized driver convenience over safety, even as people continue to die on our streets.

For generations, Denver’s street designs have catered not just to driving, but to driving dangerously. The majority of streets on the city’s High Injury Network — just 5 percent of streets where half of all traffic deaths occur — are major arterials like Colfax, Federal, Colorado, Speer and Alameda. These corridors are engineered to move as many vehicles as quickly as possible. People walking and biking are left to navigate speeding traffic with minimal protection, crossing up to eight lanes just to reach the other side.

We know what works. The data is unequivocal: On streets like these, the most effective safety improvements reduce the space available for fast-moving vehicles. Road diets, narrower lanes, shorter crossings and dedicated space for sidewalks, bike lanes and bus lanes all make streets safer for everyone — including drivers — by bringing speeds down to survivable levels.

And yet, Mayor Johnston’s recent decision to abandon the planned road diet on Alameda Avenue is only the latest example of the city retreating from proven safety measures because they might inconvenience drivers. The city noted that its revised plan for Alameda would save drivers an extra sixty seconds of driving time, compared to the original road diet.

The mayor must confront a hard truth: We cannot keep people safe without changing the status quo, and the status quo is built on prioritizing speed and convenience over human life. Denver cannot have it both ways.

So the real question for Mayor Johnston is this: How many lives is Denver willing to sacrifice to preserve driver convenience?

So far in 2025, we have lost 87 people — and counting.

NEW YORK — The NHL hits a roster freeze at 11:59 p.m. on Friday, so with defenseman Egor Zamula clearing waivers and being assigned to the American Hockey League, it left a roster spot open.

Forward Denver Barkey has been called up.

Drafted by the Flyers in the third round of the 2023 NHL draft, Barkey turned pro this season and has been impressive while skating primarily on the wing for Lehigh Valley of the AHL. The 20-year-old has 16 points (seven goals, nine assists) in 26 games for the Phantoms, primarily playing on the wing with center Lane Pederson and winger Alex Bump.

“I think right from the start, he’s played very well,” Flyers assistant general manager Brent Flahr recently told The Inquirer. “On the production side, he makes plays, he works, and the details are great. Such a smart player. He’s got to get stronger and build up his body to handle the grind and but so far, so good.

“Down there, he’s been arguably our best forward a lot of nights, and coaches love them plays, plays a lot. He’s certainly going in the right direction.”

» READ MORE: Flyers Q&A: Brent Flahr dishes on prospects Porter Martone, Jett Luchanko, and more

Well, the direction now is east to New York City ahead of the Flyers’ matchup with the New York Rangers on Saturday afternoon (12:30 p.m., NBCSP). The kid from Ontario is in line to make his debut at the World’s Most Famous Arena.

“I call him like a little mini [Travis Konecny],” Flyers director of player development Riley Armstrong said of Barkey over the summer. “He’s all over the puck. He’s grimy when he doesn’t have the puck. He’s always working to get the puck back.

“He’s really good with his stick picking pockets, transitioning, and his eyes are up; I don’t think a little guy like that skating around, his head down, is going to last very long in the game.

“But when you watch him go into corners, and he’s not afraid of that, he’s quick to get in, he’s quick to get out.”

Some have questioned Barkey’s size at 5-foot-10, 173 pounds, but no one questions his grit, moxie, will, and determination. Last season, he notched 25 goals and 82 points in 50 regular-season games before adding another nine goals and 20 points in 11 postseason games for London of the Ontario Hockey League.

On June 1, he captained the Knights to the Memorial Cup championship despite suffering a high-ankle sprain in the OHL Final. In the finale of the Memorial Cup, against the projected No. 1 for this June’s draft, Gavin McKenna, and Medicine Hat of the Western Hockey League, Barkey drove play and scored a pair of goals.

A month later, he was at the Flyers development camp but did not participate. He did, however, try.

“[Barkey] always comes to me every morning, ‘Hey, do you think you can get me out on the ice?’ No, no, you’re done,” Armstrong said with a chuckle in early July.

The rest helped. He was again impressive at the Flyers’ rookie camp and in a game against their Rangers counterparts in early September in Allentown.

Barkey opened eyes with his speed, hockey IQ, puck possession and patience, and high-end passing ability. Looking completely healed from his high-ankle sprain, the forward used his quickness, leverage, and ability to win pucks to beat the defense at every turn and notched a goal.

It appears that his summer of eating Italian giant subs — Mike’s way, minus the onions — at Jersey Mike’s with his buddy, and former London teammate, Oliver Bonk, to add weight paid off. Phantoms coach John Snowden called him “a heck of a hockey player” in September.

“Continue to get bigger, stronger,” Barkey said of his summer plans at development camp. “It’s a big jump next year. I’m going to be playing against older men and strong guys. So, continuing to get stronger, faster, and I think the biggest thing is just using my brain and then finding a way to adjust. It’s a different game in pro.”

And Barkey has adjusted well to the pro ranks, skating on the wing of the Phantoms’ top line, which drives play and is relied on for offensive swings. His fellow winger, Bump, was actually the one many thought would be called up.

The kid from Minnesota, who led Western Michigan to the NCAA championship in April, was pegged by everyone, including The Inquirer, to break camp with the Flyers; however, he was sent down after a poor main training camp. After a slow start in Lehigh Valley, he now has 20 points (seven goals, 13 assists) in 26 games in Allentown.