OKLAHOMA CITY — Slowly unscrewing the cap of a mouthwash bottle on a table in a Denver locker room that reeked of dejection and resignation, guard Christian Braun tried to cleanse the bitter taste.

This 125-93 thrashing by Oklahoma City felt like penance for all the basketball sins committed by Denver during the past two years, wasted by two grown men who bickered instead of building something beautiful together.

This was by no means a Game 7 to remember, but one Denver better not forget.

With the clock ticking on the prime of Nikola Jokic, the Nuggets need a new architect with a fresh vision ASAP. This poorly constructed, top-heavy, unbalanced team has gone stale.

“You knew what this team was,” Nuggets owner Stan Kroenke told me Sunday at Paycom Center, “before we made the move.”

The move blew out the stench of toxicity between coach Michael Malone and general manager Calvin Booth, by firing two primary architects of the Nuggets’ lone league championship on a Black Tuesday in early April.

Yes, the bold decision woke something in the way this core of Jokic, Jamal Murray and Aaron Gordon once were at their glorious best, infusing them with energy to beat the L.A. Clippers in a seven-game series and take the Thunder to the limit before bowing out of the playoffs.

“Crushed for the guys,” said interim coach David Adelman, who took a no-win situation and ran with it, pushing a team broken in body and spirit to its current limit.

But the top end of Denver’s game simply isn’t championship worthy because the back end of its rotation is untrustworthy.

“We cannot ask for somebody who didn’t play for maybe 20 or 30 games (during the regular season) to jump in and be good,” Jokic said.

He was limited to nine shots during his final game of a season of historic offensive greatness by three Oklahoma City defenders tasked with swarming him in the lane, successfully gambling the others in a Denver uniform weren’t good enough to do the necessary damage to beat the Thunder.

While selective amnesia might be the easier choice, please don’t erase a sad image from a beatdown that felt like the end of an era.

In the fourth quarter, with Denver trailing by as many as 38 points and exhausted starters already mercifully given a seat on the bench, the Nuggets on the floor included Jalen Pickett, Peyton Watson, Julian Strawther and Zeke Nnaji.

Yep, those are the same young guys Booth hand-picked to help build a dynasty, but were regarded as such no-hopers by Malone that he wouldn’t play them.

I’m willing to stand up and testify Malone knows what it takes to make championship basketball better than Booth.

But at this point, the point is moot, because the never-ending argument over marginal NBA talent got both men fired in embarrassing fashion.

Glue guy. Heart and soul. Overused terms in sports on a daily basis.

But not in the case of Gordon. He’s the personification.

He pulled his uniform on for this do-or-done showdown despite a hamstring strain suffered in the waning seconds of Game 6.

With NBA insider Shams Charania, using all the power of ESPN rights-holder sources, making it sound as if Gordon would have to hide under the bedcovers and require a nurse’s supervision 24/7 for the next month, the Nuggets’ rainbow warrior took the floor in the starting lineup.

“There was never a doubt,” said Gordon, who admitted he wouldn’t have been physically able to play again for at least another week had Denver advanced to the Western Conference finals.

When Gordon hit a free throw to complete a three-point play with five minutes, 31 seconds, remaining in the first quarter, the Nuggets took a 21-10 lead.

For graybeard basketball lovers watching at home, it felt a little like a Willis Reed moment. In the arena, the feeling was puckered, so uptight were the 18,203 OKC fans craving a championship to call their own.

But you know the trouble with fairy-tale endings?

It’s damn hard to maintain the magic all the way to the story’s last page.

“We took control of the game,” Adelman said, “and then lost it very quickly.”

During the final 17 minutes before halftime, the Nuggets lost their shooting touch somewhere in the seat cushions of the team bench. They missed 20 of 29 field-goal attempts in the stretch that spelled final doom to their feisty playoff fight.

After being down by 11 early, Oklahoma rolled like Thunder into intermission, burying Denver under a 50-25 deluge that established a no-doubt-about-it, 14-point lead at the conclusion of two quarters.

They say it ain’t over until the fat lady sings, but the Nuggets could hear her do-re-mi’s outside the visitors locker room.

So much of the second half stunk like garbage time that I bet you could smell it from 675 miles away, all the way back in Denver.

While Adelman stepped into a no-win situation with no notice and did an admirable job, it would be one step beyond madness to even consider him to be a lock as the full-time coach going forward until the father-and-son Kroenke ownership team decides on a general manager.

Jokic is the most powerful force of nature in the basketball universe, but he couldn’t lift the Nuggets to an upset, especially with the weight of pesky OKC defender Alex Caruso hanging on both of Joker’s arms.

Caruso wears steel boots and kicks up dust for the Thunder the way Bruce Brown lugged a lunchbucket every inch of the way during Denver’s run to a championship in 2023.

Caruso is the savvy player that Michael Porter Jr. never will be, no matter how much the Nuggets pay or coddle him.

His salary of $35.86 million won’t make MPJ an All-Star, but does make him a serious contender for the most overpaid player in the entire NBA.

Caruso gets paid barely 25% of the money Denver wastes on Porter, but is twice as valuable. And his $9.89 million salary is a painful reminder of what a tall task the next Nuggets G.M. faces in reshaping the roster before another year of Jokic’s prime slips through the hourglass.

“I”m not sure it will be the same exact group next year,” Porter said. “But whatever’s next for me, whatever’s next for this team, I know the guys will be ready for it.”

In the hallway outside the losing locker room, I asked Josh Kroenke how he was doing.

“I’ve been better,” he replied. “This is hard. But I’m proud of this group.”

Where do the Nuggets go from here?

“Right now,” Kroenke replied. “I’m not prepared to answer that question. Ask me again in a few days.”

OK, but I can’t — and won’t — wait to give a little free advice.

The Nuggets need to stop trying to recreate the magic of 2023.

That championship is forever, but it’s got no power over tomorrow.

The Thunder is built to last. Victor Wembanyama will make San Antonio a winner sooner rather than later. Houston has the trade capital to land Giannis Antetokounmpo. Duke sensation Cooper Flagg is headed to Dallas.

If the Nuggets don’t get their act together quick, their championship glow will fade to black quickly in the West.

Whether it’s a general manager with a proven track record of building a championship roster like our old pal Tim Connelly or former Warriors guru Bob Myers, or a rising star in the front-office ranks, the Nuggets need to hire somebody pronto.

Get somebody in well before the June draft, because if there’s a trade market for Porter or Murray, the new boss must explore every avenue to build a deeper squad.

The Nuggets need to hit the reset button.

Joker is 30 years old and the rest of us aren’t getting any younger.