By Johnny Askounis/ info@eurohoops.net
The Denver Nuggets opened their 2026–27 NBA Regular Season with a rough night at Paycom Center, falling to the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Their star duo couldn’t find their rhythm against a relentless opposing defense on Thursday. Serbian Nikola Jokic was held to just 13 points on 5-of-19 shooting, while Jamal Murray made only two of his 11 field goal attempts. As a unit, the team finished a cold 31-of-82 from the floor.
“Sometimes you have a bad shooting night, the guys try to do things on their own, instead of playing with the pass, and that leads to mistakes,” head coach David Adelman reflected on the offensive stagnation during his postgame press conference.
“The other guys have to step up. If there’s that many bodies being brought to them, the attention that they get. Other people have to step up and make shots,” he explained that other players must take advantage of the defensive attention drawn by Jokic and Murray during their shooting struggles.
“It doesn’t matter who’s out or who’s in, in the sense of trust. You have to let guys be themselves, and the open man wins in the NBA. Especially against this team, if you turn down open shots, you drive it back into their defense. This is the best defense in the league,” continued the 45-year-old tactician. “We’ll keep working at it, though. The guys, I thought, had great effort, played extremely hard, just didn’t play very well.”
On the other side, Thunder starter Isaiah Hartenstein credited frontcourt depth for neutralizing Denver’s offense. “We have so many bigs that just keep coming,” noted the German forward-center. “I think it’s great, and I think we just did a great job of being disciplined.”
He also praised the squad’s collective resilience. “That’s what makes us special. I think we really trust each other. We know the highs and lows of an NBA game. So, we just stay consistent,” he added.
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