First Quarter

The first quarter of this one was an interesting watch. It was arguably the best first quarter that the Nuggets have had all season long, and by a decent mark. They ended up shooting 61% from the field in the first, which was helped by Jamal Murray and Christian Braun both looking very good athletically. They were spry, running up and down the court with an intensity that was necessary to set a tone. The Nuggets had been lethargic in some areas to start the season, but they looked like they were trying to lock in.

However, they were still held back by some underwhelming performances by MPJ and Aaron Gordon. Neither of them looked too engaged, and while a lot of that can be tacked up to their shots just not falling early, it still didn’t help whenever a possession ended in a Michael Porter Jr. miss or an Aaron Gordon post up not working out how they thought it would. By the time the bench came in, the starters hadn’t really found any separation from the Raptors, which was concerning. They were up by a few points, but that went away as soon as the bench checked in.

Dario Saric continued to struggle. He hasn’t found any way to contribute to winning so far, and that didn’t change early in this one. Russ set him up in some decent spots, and he still just didn’t see many of them go down. He missed his first three shots, and outside of Julian Strawther, the bench started 1/8 in their first stint.

Second Quarter

The second quarter didn’t look any better than the first. The bench started it, and it had me asking a lot of questions about some of the bench players. Russ didn’t look that bad. He set guys up well, and was fine defensively. However, it’s unclear what Peyton Watson’s role is. He hasn’t taken a meaningful offensive leap, at least not that we’ve seen yet. The only bright spot for the bench from that stint was maybe Julian Strawther, though he also struggled defensively.

The starters also started to revert. They started to look like they were running out of steam. Jamal started to get cooked defensively, and ultimately by the time half time came around they hadn’t managed to close the gap between them and the Raptors after the first half came to a close. The Nuggets hadn’t shot poorly from the field, at 54.1%, but they only managed to get up 8 three pointers in the first half. That just isn’t a sustainable rate in the modern NBA. At the close of the half, the Nuggets were trailing the Raptors 54-62.

Third Quarter

When the Nuggets came out, there may have been some hope that they would find themselves at half time, and close the gap. Instead the exact opposite happened. They came out looking slow, lethargic, and unmotivated. They immediately allowed a 9-2 run, and it led Malone to call a timeout. They found themselves down 15 just two minutes into the quarter. The team looked bad, just didn’t want to be there.

However, they did chip away at that lead over the next several minutes, eventually cutting it down to 5 behind the starters playing better than they did to open the half. Nikola Jokic was the main driving force behind the comeback. Though, once the bench subbed in the lead got back up to 11. By the end of the quarter though, they managed to cut it back down to five points. This came off the back of Jokic, Murray, Russ, and AG mostly. The score was 88-83 headed in to the final frame, advantage to the Raptors.

Fourth Quarter

The first thing that happened in the fourth quarter was a little kerfuffle between Aaron Gordon and Scottie Barnes. No hits or anything, but getting in each other’s faces and talking. It resulted in techs for both of them, but after that the Nuggets seemed to wake up a little bit more. Russ was trying his hardest – he really put everything he had on the line. That’s the one thing you can always expect from him. They went to an Aaron Gordon at center lineup, and it freed up a bit of operating room for the offense. Russ got a little turnaround jumper to fall, followed by some AG free throws, and an MPJ stepback midrange. That managed to cut it down to a two point game, the closest it had been in the half.

However, once they came back from a Toronto timeout, the Raptors rattled off two easy looks in a row – they were making it clear that Russ and Julian (defensively speaking) are not super tenable with one another, but you have to accept that everything is sort of awkward one way or the other. Malone was trying everything tonight, he’s clearly working hard to try and find everything. They gave him a paintbrush without any paint and told him to paint the Mona Lisa, so getting anything on the canvas was a good thing.

The Nuggets tried keeping it close, but Russ fouled Gradey Dick on a three pointer, then he hit another three on the next trip down. Christian Braun had a really nice run, where he had a couple buckets, some good stops, but ultimately it just didn’t seem to matter. The Raptors kept scoring, and the Nuggets were running out of offensive steam. By the 5 minute mark, it was still a 9 point game. The Nuggets didn’t go away though, Christian Braun and Jokic didn’t let them down. Those two scored 17 of the Nuggets last 21 points of regulation. It led to Jamal Murray hitting an acrobatic game tying layup, and it got sent to overtime.

Overtime

Overtime was a fairly straight forward affair. It was Jokic. It was Murray. Those two took the Nuggets to the promised land. Between the two of them they scored all but two points for the Nuggets in OT. With those two putting up good performances, and RJ Barrett Denzel Valentine-ing it, the Nuggets were able to walk out of Toronto with a W. It’s their first of the season, and hopefully the first of many for this season. Jokic also put up his second straight 40 point game in a row.