For 48 minutes, the Nuggets offense finally resembled last year's high-flying attack

It came as a surprise to Denver Nuggets’ coach Michael Malone and others within the organization that it has taken longer than expected for the Nuggets to get back to the elite offensive level they played at a season ago.

Maybe that rocky transition should have been inferred with three new starters; a 20-year-old point guard in Jamal Murray who only started seven games at the position last season, a changing of the guard at small forward with Wilson Chandler who flourished in a bench role a year ago, and Paul Millsap — a high-usage power forward who wouldn’t seamlessly mesh with Nikola Jokic right away. But through five or so regular-season games the offense that was League Pass must-see television last season left a lot to be desired.

Denver can breath a bit easier after their 129-111 win over the Toronto Raptors because it looks like their offense will be okay after game No. 8.

It’s not 100 percent back and still isn’t what it was at full tilt last season. But for 48 minutes Denver was flowing. They moved the ball, executed in the half court, hit their open shots and gave off stark 2016-17 vibes on that end of the floor. The Nuggets registered 35 assists on the night — by far their season-high.

“Offensively, the ball’s flying around,” Malone said after the win. “I think the spacing is getting there and guys are looking to make plays for each other and that’s who we were for three-and-a-half months last year. And I think we’re starting to find our identity.”

That stretch Malone is referring to last season was, of course, the post-Dec. 15 run where Denver was the league’s best offense. Better than the historic Golden State Warriors, more potent than James Harden and the Houston Rockets’ revolutionary attack and more efficient than LeBron James‘ Cavaliers. And Wednesday night against Toronto, who came into Pepsi Center sporting the league’s third-best defense, the Nuggets flashed that prowess.

Denver shot 53 percent from the field, hit 50 percent of their threes and made a point to play in transition after struggling to run at times this year. The Nuggets were a world-class transition team last season and ran up 20 fastbreak points on the Raptors — also a new season-high.

“It’s getting better and better every game,” Will Barton said. “The more [Millsap] gets comfortable, [Murray] a new starter, [Chandler] gets comfortable at the three, I think we’ll see it get better and better. It’s a process. It’s still early in the season.”

Millsap, who was struggling to find himself within Denver’s offense heading into Wednesday night’s matchup, got the Nuggets going. The $90 million-dollar man took over in the first quarter after a poor 2-13 showing in Madison Square Garden on Monday and scored 13 of Denver’s first 15 points. The Nuggets took a 34-17 lead into the second and never looked back.

The upbeat vibe in the Nuggets’ locker room was reminiscent of last year’s second-half run and one of a team on the verge of clicking offensively. Specifically, Millsap and Jokic who are growing more comfortable with one another by the day. Malone likes to compare the two to a new couple that just started dating. With the pair surviving their first road trip together — a pivotal stretch in any relationship — it’s all systems go.

Spacing in Denver’s frontcourt, which has been Millsap and Jokic’s biggest sticking point so far, wasn’t an issue against Toronto. Millsap was able to find his shot from distance, hit three jumpers from beyond the arc and provided enough room for both him and Jokic to go to work. Millsap’s threes also opened up driving lanes for his teammates. Murray was 5-5 from the paint and as a team, Denver shot 23-34 (70.6 percent) from around the restricted area.

“I don’t want to be in his way so sometimes I’m the dunker, sometimes I’m in the high post,” Jokic said. “I just want to get out of his way. I think he’s a very good post offensive player. The things that he can do, there’s not a lot of people in the league who can do what he can do.”

The rest of Denver’s starters were also dominant against Toronto. Murray finished with 24 points on just ten shots and found the bottom on a trio of three-pointers after a scary first-quarter fall over the courtside seats that line Pepsi Center’s floor and finished a game-high +35 in just 21 minutes. After starting the season 2-21 from three, Murray has gone 7-17 from three over his past three games.

“He’s a different Jamal Murray than we saw earlier in the season,” Malone said of “The Blue Arrow” whose confidence is at an all-time high.

Like he was prone to do last season, Jokic dominated the flow of the game but did so while only scoring eight points. He came within two points of a triple-double and logged 16 rebounds and ten assists. He was just loose enough with the ball to manipulate the defense with his handles and dribble-hand-offs but also didn’t commit any turnovers. Gary Harris — the metronome of the Nuggets’ offense — scored 15 points on a clean 6-8 shooting.

“We’re slowly but surely getting back to that,” Harris said about the offense from his locker over the beat of 21 Savage and Offset’s latest hit Ghostface Killers. “We knew it was going to take some time.”

Denver was crisp against Toronto. Cuts were made on cue, backdoor cuts were in lock-step, pocket-passes were executed perfectly, and the Nuggets’ read-and-react philosophy was on display.

Still, there’s room to grow. Malone, for one, wasn’t happy with what he called a “good effort for three-and-a-half quarters” after the Raptors scored 40 points in the fourth even though the game was never in doubt after Denver’s patented third-quarter run. The Nuggets also caught Toronto in the middle of a six-game West Coast swing and Serge Ibaka and Jonas Valanciunas, who both had been injured, returned to the starting lineup. Inserting those two could have thrown the Raptors off their game which had been clicking on both ends up until Wednesday night.

But this was a step in the right direction for Denver who’s closer to re-discovering their offensive identity, continuing to mesh Millsap and Jokic together, and gradually starting to play their brand of basketball again. With five more home games on tap over the next nine days, this type of win couldn’t have come at a better time.