The Denver Nuggets took their biggest blowout win of the season and wanted to follow it with another big win against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Things didn’t quite go according to plan, as the Nuggets played terribly for two and a half minutes. However, the Thunder could not stop a rally in Denver in the back of the game. Nikola Jokic, Michael Porter Jr and Jamal Murray took a win in a game that had no win. Nuggets steal one, 98-95.
The Nuggets started the game slow. They were unable to get a basket until almost two minutes had passed. That enabled the Thunder to take an early lead behind Al Horford and a 6-0 run to open the game. Jokic eventually took control of the attack, standing up for himself first before setting up his teammates for multiple buckets. By mid-quarter, the Thunder still held the lead, but the attack on both sides died out. It was pretty shoddy through the end of the quarter. Every team got a bucket here or a bucket there, but there wasn’t much good basketball. To close the quarter, the Thunder put another point on the rails, with the Nuggets flipping the ball over and not boxing on defense. After one Denver, a dozen followed.
The banking unit continued to struggle to open the second quarter. There wasn’t much in the way of a plan for insult, either just guys going one in four (Will Barton) or threes with stones (everyone else). Murray and Jokic checked in again with eight minutes to go at half time and Denver fourteen. Jokic hit a crazy buzzer while beating Sombor Shuffle, but otherwise it was still all Thunder. OKC rattled off another 8-0 run behind the Denver, settling for jumpshots and stupid turnovers to put the lead at seventeen. Denver just couldn’t resist shooting itself in the foot. With the winding down of the quarter, Jokic seemed to have had enough and decided to take matters into his own hands. He scored eleven of the Nuggets final thirteen points in the half and got them in thirteen by the time the buzzer sounded.
The Nuggets had some success in the offense to start the second half, but the defense was horrendous. Murray got a few buckets to keep the Thunder lead from growing, but Denver didn’t gain ground either. Porter Jr was the next Nugget to launch his attack and things finally started to turn the tide. He put in a 13-4 run with the assist (quite literally) from Jokic. He fell a little too in love with the jump shot as the quarter went on, but had an incredible block. Jokic also got cold off the field, so the Thunder extended their lead back to double digits. At the end of the quarter, Hamidou Diallo inexplicably attempted to block a Murray swell to the buzzer and was called up for goaltending, dropping the Thunder’s lead to nine.
The bank and Murray opened the fourth and were unable to close the lead. JaMychal Green in particular had a hard time and had been busy all night. They also struggled to secure defensive rebounds. However, the thunder turned cold as Monte Morris found a little rhythm. He led to a 7-0 run to get Denver in two and force an OKC timeout. Shortly after, Murray turned his ankle on a driveway. It looked very bad, but somehow he stayed in the game, but the attack stopped again. The Nuggets got as close as two points before Oklahoma slid it back to eight. However, Denver was not ready yet. Murray took it out and Barton tried to retreat within three minutes with just under three minutes left. The Nuggets are carved out with the Thunder attack that is completely out of sync. Finally, they took the lead on a Jokic float with just over a minute to go. After another Thunder turnover, Barton buried a huge three that turned out to be the dagger. Nuggets win 98-95.