The Denver Nuggets still haven’t found a clean groove, and Monday night offered another frustrating example. After stringing together two straight wins to get back over .500, Denver let a 14-point first-half lead slip away and fell 118-110 to the Portland Trail Blazers, dropping to 3-3.
It was the kind of game that leaves you shaking your head because the Nuggets had chances. They opened fast, put up 31 points in the first quarter and 35 in the second, and looked like the better team early.
But the second half turned into a different story entirely. Denver managed just 21 points in the third and 23 in the fourth, while Portland took control with 60 points after halftime.
The numbers tell the story of the collapse. The Nuggets shot 38% from the field in the second half, while the Blazers hit 50%.
Portland also owned the glass after halftime, winning the rebound battle by 16 and grabbing nine more offensive boards. That kind of swing is hard to survive, especially against a team that kept pressing and never let Denver settle back in.
This won’t be remembered as a disastrous loss, but it was one the Nuggets could have banked. They played well enough to win for long stretches. They just didn’t finish the job.
Jamal Murray was the one steady force again. After some early concern when he scored just six points in the opener, the All-Star guard has answered with the kind of production Denver needs. He already had 42-point and 39-point games in the first five contests, and he followed that up Monday with 35 points, five rebounds, and six assists.
Murray shot 10-19 from the field, 4-9 from three, and a perfect 11-11 at the line. He has led the Nuggets in scoring in four of the past five games, which is exactly the role Denver wants him filling. The bigger issue is that the offense around him hasn’t consistently matched his level, and that’s a concern for a team that owned the league’s best offense last season.
The struggles were especially noticeable from Denver’s starting forward spots. Aaron Gordon finished with five points and six rebounds on 2-6 shooting, including 1-4 from deep. Cameron Johnson posted seven points and four rebounds on 2-5 shooting and 1-3 from beyond the arc.
Gordon’s rough start has already raised eyebrows, and this game only added to that. He also missed an open layup in crunch time when the Nuggets were trying to chip away late.
Johnson, meanwhile, is still working back from a three-game injury absence, and he hasn’t looked settled in either of his two games since returning. He is now 3-11 from three-point range in that stretch.
There’s still plenty of time for both forwards to settle in, but Monday’s loss put a spotlight on two important spots in Denver’s rotation. For a team trying to build momentum, that’s not the kind of night you want to waste.
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Now the front office has added another layer of uncertainty. Denver has kept Holmes Bird rights, which gives the team a path to re-sign him, but it also declined the rookie-scale option tied to his future seasons, a move that leaves his next contract situation far less straightforward. For a player the Nuggets paid to go get on draft night, it is a notable signal about how carefully they are weighing his place in the roster picture. [Read more 🡒]