The Denver Nuggets faced the Oklahoma City Thunder on the second night of a back to back and it showed. The Nuggets offered a sloppy and dispirited effort throughout the night while the Thunder slowly but surely built an insurmountable lead. Nikola Jokic was solid but Shai Gilgeous-Alexander went super nova and had a big scoring night. The Nuggets didn’t have much resistance and end up getting blown out 119-93.

Chet Holmgren led the Thunder to an early lead while Michael Porter Jr. did all the scoring for Denver. That pattern continued on both sides with the Thunder maintaining their lead. About halfway through the quarter Kentavious Caldwell-Pope went down with an apparent leg injury but he would stay in the game. Denver fought back behind Jokic and Peyton Watson to tie the game at 22. Denver went cold from three after that but OKC couldn’t take advantage. Denver’s shooting woes continued as the quarter closed. SGA drove the offense for the Thunder and after one it was the Thunder up 33-27.

The refs called it tight to start the second quarter while the Nuggets offense struggled and the lead grew. Denver took a timeout and refocused their defense which kept the lead from growing anymore. Reggie Jackson banged legs defending a fastbreak and had to come out of the game. Denver’s starters came back in  after that but were a bit sluggish and sloppy so they didn’t make any progress on catching up with the Thunder. Denver committed turnover after turnover so despite playing strong defense they were falling further behind. They made a push near the end of the half but couldn’t close strong and ended up going to the locker room still trailing 54-48.

The starters came out with energy and closed the gap a little bit to open the second half. OKC pushed back behind Holmgren and SGA to push the lead right back to eight. Offensive rebounds were killing Denver along with turnovers which let the Thunder grow the lead to double digits. Denver’s offense was grinding to a halt, they depended too much on three pointers that they weren’t making while the OKC offense was starting to cook. The struggles continued as the quarter progressed and Denver was in danger of getting blown out. Gilgeous-Alexander got whatever he wanted and the Nuggets looked like they were losing interest. With the lead up to twenty-two Michael Malone took a timeout with a minute to go in the quarter. DeAndre Jordan had a powerful putback dunk but after three the Nuggets were in big trouble trailing 88-68.

The bench found a little momentum to open the fourth quarter and were able to trim the lead down to fifteen. The refs quickly put an end to that with some questionable foul calls on Denver. The Thunder pushed the lead back over twenty but Malone still put the starters back in the game. They kept the lead right around where it was but weren’t able to make up any ground. The Nuggets looked ready to give up with about four minutes to go and the Thunder methodically put them away. Malone relented and put in the deep bench at about the three minute mark and that was it. Denver takes an ugly 119-93 loss on their home floor.