“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”
– Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

I doubt like the Dickens that Charles had ever seen a basketball game when he penned those famous words back in 1859, especially as the sport wouldn’t be invented for another 32 years. But if he’d been sitting courtside in Oklahoma City Thursday night, he’d have had a pretty good idea of what to write about the Denver Nuggets‘ season opener. And I’ll be gormed, he’d maybe even have had a few choice words for the second half. Shucks, said Chuck.

The Nuggets opened their 2026-27 campaign against the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder, and for the first 24 minutes, things looked pretty promising. Denver won the first quarter. Won the second quarter, too. Both barely, but they headed into halftime with a 48-44 lead, having held one of the league’s most dangerous offenses to just 44 points on its home floor.

Even more impressively, they’d held two-time reigning MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander without a single field goal. Zero. Zilch. Seven attempts, seven misses. The guy who had scored at least 20 points in 141 consecutive regular-season games had managed just two free throws in the entire first half.

That’s a pretty remarkable defensive accomplishment, no matter how you slice it. And yet… Denver’s lead was only four points. Four.

For all the defensive brilliance the Nuggets had displayed, their offense had apparently decided to observe the occasion from a respectful distance. Denver wasn’t exactly lighting up the scoreboard itself, and when you have the reigning MVP shooting blanks for an entire half, you’d sure like to have a little more to show for it than a two-possession lead.

As it turns out, that was a pretty important missed opportunity.

And then a twist, and not of the Oliver sort. The Thunder came out of halftime looking a lot more like the Thunder, and Denver’s offense continued looking a lot like it had in the first half. Only worse. Anemic like Tiny Tim. Oklahoma City erased the lead, took its first advantage since the opening minutes late in the third quarter, and never really looked back. They Pickwicked the Nuggets pockets. A 48-44 Denver halftime lead became a 70-64 Oklahoma City advantage after three, and eventually a 96-84 Nuggets loss.

For those keeping score at home, Denver won each of the first two quarters by a combined four points, then lost each of the last two by a combined 16. The opposite of the sort of symmetry anyone in Nuggets Nation was hoping to see.

The final shooting numbers were particularly ugly. Denver hit just 38 percent of its shots from the floor, 27 percent from beyond the arc, and a downright painful 64 percent from the free-throw line. It’s hard enough to beat the Thunder in Oklahoma City when you’re firing on all cylinders. When you’re misfiring on most of them, you’re going to have a long evening.

Aaron Gordon was one of the few Nuggets who seemed to have brought his shooting touch along for the trip, leading Denver with 20 points on 6-of-9 shooting, including three of his four attempts from deep. DeMar DeRozan contributed 13 points off the bench, shooting an efficient 5-of-9, while Nikola Jokic also finished with 13. Rookie Trevon Brazile also provided a highlight in his Nuggets debut, pulling down 12 rebounds and showing some of the energy Denver will need from its reworked bench.

But those individual positives couldn’t overcome an offense that struggled to find any sort of consistent rhythm against Oklahoma City’s formidable defense. Both teams may be gunning for a ring this season, but only one of them looked like it had remembered to bring its shooting touch.

And because the basketball gods apparently felt the evening needed one more little kick in the shins, starting forward Cam Johnson suffered a right ankle sprain, leaving his immediate availability uncertain. For a Denver team that spent far too much of last season trying to figure out how to keep its key players on the floor at the same time, that’s a storyline nobody was particularly eager to revisit. Especially on opening night. That was fast.

There was one rather unexpected footnote to all of this, though.

Gilgeous-Alexander finished with just 17 points, ending his NBA-record streak of 141 consecutive regular-season games with at least 20. He even had an opportunity to extend that streak in the closing minutes, but with Oklahoma City comfortably ahead and Denver emptying its bench, SGA asked to come out of the game rather than chase three more points against the reserves.

The best of news. The worst of news. Denver held one of the best scorers in basketball to his lowest output in nearly two years, ended a historic streak, and still managed to lose by 12 points.

It’s tempting to look at the final score and conclude that Denver’s defense fell apart in the second half. And sure, allowing 52 points after surrendering just 44 in the first isn’t the direction you’d prefer. But holding Oklahoma City to 96 points on its home court is a defensive performance most teams would gladly take.

The problem wasn’t really the defense. It was that Denver couldn’t turn that defensive effort into enough offense to matter.

And perhaps that’s the more important lesson from this opener. The Nuggets had a golden opportunity to build a meaningful lead while Oklahoma City’s best player was having one of the worst shooting halves of his career. Instead, they gave the Thunder every opportunity to find its footing, and once it did, Denver had no offensive answer. Last year’s best offense will show itself again. But not for the first 48 minutes of this season.

And that’s really the point. Before anyone starts reaching for the panic button, we’re talking about one game. On the road. Against a team as solid as the more-recent-than-us champs. Denver has new faces to integrate, rotations to sort out, and an entire season ahead for head coach David Adelman to figure out what works best with this version of the Nuggets. There’s plenty of reason to believe the offense will look a whole lot better than it did Thursday night. The guys who weren’t making it work have plenty of face time together.

And there was some real encouragement to be found in that first-half defense. The challenge will be finding a way to pair it with the sort of offensive efficiency we’ve come to expect from a team built around Nikola Jokic.

Because the Nuggets don’t need to hold every opponent’s superstar to two first-half points to win basketball games. They just need to make sure that when they do, they can make it actually count for something.

It could have been the best of halves. It then really was the worst of halves. And for the Nuggets, it was only the first of 82 games. They’d better try like the dickens to find that footing fast.