It was just the third game of an 82-game season.

But the New Orleans Pelicans’ head-scratching Saturday night collapse against the Denver Nuggets feels like more than just a hiccup in a long grueling season.

This 141-135 overtime loss seems like the kind that could linger for a while if Jamahl Mosley doesn’t find some answers.

Call this one the Mile High Meltdown.

The Pelicans led by 14 after the first quarter, 16 at halftime, 19 heading into the fourth quarter and 16 with 7:24 remaining. With 1:35 seconds left, the Pels led by seven. And still lost.  

All the things they had done to build the comfortable lead vanished.

Just like that, they couldn’t score and they couldn’t stop turning the ball over.

As a result, the Pelicans are still trying to get Mosley his first win as the team’s head coach.

Closing out games was a strong suit for Mosley last season when he was head coach of the Orlando Magic. That hasn’t been the case through the first three games of the season in losses to the Indiana Pacers, Utah Jazz and now the Nuggets.

The Pacers rode on the backs of Tyrese Haliburton and Pascal Siakam down the stretch in the season opener. The Nuggets were carried by Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray on Saturday.

The Pelicans, meanwhile, have yet to figure out who they can count on to close games.

Until they do, there will be more of these “close but no cigar” games.

This latest loss felt worse though because of how the Pels dominated for so long.

This wasn’t the worst blown lead of this young NBA season. The Cleveland Cavaliers were unable to hold on to a 29-point lead against LeBron James and the Philadelphia 76ers last week. But the Cavs are a team that reached the Eastern Conference Finals last season. You see their collapse as just one of those off nights. With the Pels, you’ve seen it so many times over the past two seasons that you’ve come to expect them to find a way to lose.

Now it’s up to Mosley to make sure not to let one debacle in Denver turn into an avalanche. “It’s the NBA,” Mosley said. “You understand that you’re going to win some games and you’re going to lose some games. So you’ve got to understand that you’re focusing on the right things and you’re pulling yourselves together as a unit. That’s what these guys will continue to focus on doing.”

Mosley knows the questions he needs to find answers to.

“Can we find the details within these games because there is a common theme in these moments?” Mosley said. “How do we do better without fouling? How do we take care of the basketball? How do we finish out possessions with a rebound? Those are big keys and the small details of the game that we can control.”

Mosley not only has to figure out how to get his team to execute better late in games. He also has to figure out which players need to be on the court to actually do the executing.

The season is young, but there is plenty of work to be done.

If you didn’t already know that, the Mile High Meltdown surely was a reminder.