The Broncos have been planning for a Saturday game at Cincinnati in Week 17.

The NFL made the date official Tuesday morning.

Denver’s road game at the Bengals will kick off at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 28, the league announced Tuesday.

It’s part of a triple-header to be broadcast on NFL Network, though there will also be a local broadcast for the game in the Denver market, too.

Denver coach Sean Payton said Monday the team had been planning for the league to put the game on Saturday. Denver and Cincinnati was one of five matchups for the week eligible to be slotted into three windows.

The other two: The L.A. Chargers — Denver’s Thursday night opponent — travel to New England for an 11 a.m. kick and then Arizona visits the L.A. Rams at 6 p.m.

The Broncos’ Week 18 home game and regular-season finale against Kansas City could also end up on either Saturday or Sunday, Jan. 4-5.

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Originally Published: December 17, 2024 at 11:29 AM MST

In a season that has already been overstuffed with theatrics, the Nuggets saved their most dramatic finish yet for the most dedicated viewers, escaping Sacramento after dark with a 130-129 win Monday.

Denver blew an early 23-point lead and then overcame a 10-point deficit in the last 4:10 for its fourth double-digit comeback win in the fourth quarter this season. There were seven lead changes in the last 75 seconds, culminating with Jamal Murray’s game-winning midrange jumper with 8.6 seconds to go.

Murray’s magic trick

Murray’s uncanny ability to transform awful individual performances into timely heat checks and cold-blooded game-winners is one of life’s great mysteries. He pulled it off again in Sacramento, scoring 15 of his team-leading 28 points in the fourth. Late in the third, he had disappeared gingerly to the locker room for a brief stint before checking back in. Just three days earlier, he revealed that he’s been dealing with plantar fasciitis in addition to a hamstring injury that sidelined him recently.

No matter. He got himself going during Nikola Jokic’s rest minutes by knocking down a pair of 3s. Then Denver’s two-man game took over in the final minute. Murray created separation for an 8-foot teardrop with 52.2 seconds left to take a 125-124 lead; assisted Jokic’s only made 3-pointer of the night with 30 seconds left to reclaim a 128-127 advantage; then slithered around a Jokic screen on the last possession to get to his step-back.

The point guard made his last five shots after starting the game 6 for 21 from the field. Nine of his points came in the last 4:10, during the decisive 21-10 run.

Murray is slowly inching his stats back up. He’s averaging 18.4 points (within 0.1 of Michael Porter Jr.) and shooting 34.8% from 3. Those numbers looked much worse at the beginning of December. He has been Denver’s leading scorer in consecutive games, both wins. His on-brand clutch redemption Monday was the most reassuring sign yet.

Breakneck pace, defense optional

The Nuggets have a transition defense problem that’s much bigger than one game. But this one encapsulated it appropriately.

In a contested that was officiated inconsistently and executed sloppily, the Kings thrived on chaos more. They scored 30 fast break points, many of them uncontested while the Nuggets refused to run back after turnovers. Denver is allowing 18.2 transition points per game, the fourth-most in the league.

The Nuggets allowed 47 points in the second quarter alone to undo their clinical start. They committed weak shooting fouls on layups and jumpers. In the last four minutes of the frame, De’Aaron Fox started running through the entire defense for easy baskets.

All five Sacramento starters were in double figures at halftime, while Jokic was the lowest-scoring starter for either team, an indicator of his strange reluctance to return the favor to Domantas Sabonis, who frequently rammed into him in the post. Aaron Gordon’s bully-ball covered for Jokic in the first quarter, but eventually, the center’s passive approach caught up with him. The Kings came back in the blink of an eye with superior physicality and speed.

When Jokic played in drop coverage, he couldn’t do anything to stall Sacramento’s momentum. But Malone went to a zone in the fourth quarter, and it threw off the hosts’ rhythm just enough times.

Fox finished with 29 points. Sabonis went for 28, in addition to 14 rebounds and six assists. DeMar DeRozan drove past Jokic for an easy go-ahead dunk in the last minute. But as the last five seconds ran down, he fumbled a pass from Sabonis while cutting for what would’ve been another baseline dunk, forcing himself into a tougher fadeaway look instead at the buzzer. It was the first possession to end empty-handed for either team since Sacramento’s turnover at the 1:35 mark.

With Braun out, Westbrook starts

Christian Braun was ruled out an hour before opening tip with a lower back strain, ending a streak of 122 consecutive games played for the 23-year-old guard. That included playoff games. The last time he didn’t appear in a game was May 22, 2023, in Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals against the Lakers. Braun now has eight DNPs in his three-year career. He had played in 153 of the last 154 games before Monday.

His first absence of the season created a new lineup scenario for Michael Malone to navigate, with Julian Strawther, Russell Westbrook and Peyton Watson each presenting viable options. Malone went with experience, playing Westbrook and Jamal Murray in a starting five together for the first time. Westbrook had a productive game, amassing an efficient 18 points, nine rebounds, 10 assists and three steals.

But to start him is to ask a lot of Murray as a 3-point shooter, and Murray has not shot the ball well this year. Through three quarters, the two guards had combined for one made 3-pointer. The Nuggets were feeling the effects of that. Westbrook was 0 for 3, even though he had more than compensated for Murray’s lack of production in other ways.

In a moment of restraint and maturity, Westbrook stopped himself from trying a fourth 3-pointer with 1:20 left, instead recognizing an open Jokic and feeding him at the foul line. The defending MVP scored an easy floater to give Denver the lead and set up the back-and-forth ending. (Jokic, in a footnote game individually, ended up with 20 points, 14 boards, 13 assists and three steals.)

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Originally Published: December 16, 2024 at 11:11 PM MST

The Denver City Council voted Monday to ban sales of nearly all flavored tobacco and nicotine products in city limits.

The council majority brushed aside arguments from convenience store and smoke shop owners facing potentially steep revenue losses and warnings about the potential of a black market forming for flavored products. Instead, they heeded calls from public health and children’s advocates who have decried products like strawberry mango e-cigarettes as lures that can draw young people into lifetimes of addiction.

“By supporting this ban, we are not pretending to solve every problem (but) we are creating more distance between something that hurts our children,” Councilwoman Flor Alvidrez said. “I have seen firsthand how tobacco products, especially when introduced at a young age, can shape a lifetime of struggle.”

Monday’s decisive 11-1 vote came three years and 10 days after a previous iteration of the council voted to approve a flavored tobacco ban of its own. Then-Mayor Michael Hancock vetoed the council’s 2021 ban, citing the negative impact on small businesses as part of the rationale behind his opposition.

This time, Mayor Mike Johnston has signaled his full support. His administration has described it as a critical public health policy — though his signature is not yet on the passed bill.

The lone no vote came from Councilman Kevin Flynn who doubled down on his belief that his colleagues’ decision will not prevent young people in Denver from obtaining products that remain legal in many surrounding communities.

Denver police officials testified in a committee hearing earlier this month that the department is not concerned about a black market forming around flavored tobacco and in fact, convenience stores may be less desirable targets for theft if they stop carrying those products. But Flynn was steadfast Monday.

“Bans create black markets. We know this is always true,” Flynn said. “Someone will buy this in Lakewood, bring it into Denver and sell it at a premium.”

But Councilman Darrell Watson, one of the ban’s three co-sponsors pushed back. Data from every state and municipality with similar bans has shown a decrease in youth access, Watson said.

During a public hearing, the council heard from medical professionals including epidemiologist Tessa Crume.

“The tobacco industry must secure its financial future by being forward thinking and understanding who its customers of tomorrow will be,” Crume said of the industry’s focus on protecting flavored offerings. “Nicotine as a drug, regardless of its delivery mechanism, drives repeated use and dependence much like cocaine and heroin.”

Crume’s grim description came opposite speakers who identified as former law enforcement agents who issued dire warnings about the risk of rising crime should the ban pass. Those included Carlos Sandoval who suggested that criminal organizations in other countries will see tobacco as a low-risk profit opportunity.

“Cartels bring e-cigarettes across the border,” Sandoval said. “Cartels and organized crime will grow stronger under prohibition in Denver.”

Dharminder Singh, a retailer with multiple locations that sell flavored tobacco products in Denver, suggested that the city is being hypocritical by going after nicotine when retail marijuana is legal citywide.

“We are promoting things that are more dangerous to society, and we are taking away things that are legalized,” he said.

Other retailers slammed councilmembers for what they described as a rushed process that did not leave room for negotiation or collaboration with law-abiding shop owners.

But Watson noted that he and his colleague spent eight months working on the ban, including more than 50 meetings with stakeholders and even paused the council approval process through the month of November. That pause resulted in hookah tobacco being exempted from the ban because of its significance to people from Middle Eastern and North African cultures.

The ban drew a significant lobbying effort from tobacco companies and groups that represent retailers large and small. In ads placed in The Denver Post, one lobbying group backed by tobacco industry giant Philip Morris International decried the potential sales tax losses to the city.

But during testimony at the committee level on Dec. 4, Donna Lynne, the CEO of Denver Health hospital, noted taxpayers often bear a majority of the long-term cost of the health impacts of tobacco and nicotine use.

Councilwoman Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez cited Lynne in her closing arguments in favor of the ban.

“When we talk about economic impact, that is what we’re talking about,” she said.

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Originally Published: December 16, 2024 at 8:42 PM MST