It was not a good Friday night for the Denver Nuggets. 

The Nuggets were ran off their own floor by the New York Knicks in a 142-103 loss to mark their largest margin of defeat this season. To make matters worse, Jamal Murray suffered an ankle injury toward the end of the first half that resulted in him needing assistance off the court. He would not return to the game. 

Murray’s injury was later deemed an ankle sprain by the team, and ESPN later reported that he would undergo further tests. 

After the game, Nuggers head coach David Adelman did not attribute the ugly loss to Murray’s injury.  

“Yeah, that’s not why we got our ass kicked,” Adelman said. “It’s because guys just let go of it, they didn’t compete. I’d say three minutes to go in the third quarter to all the way through the fourth, outside of DaRon Holmes, I’d say nobody competed.  

Regarding Murray’s injury, ESPN reported that Adelman said he did not know if Murray “was looking at days or weeks on the sideline.” 

By half time, the Nuggets were only down by 13 points — a very manageable deficit. However, Jokic and Murray accounted for 33 of Denver’s 52 points in the first two quarters. By the second half, things quickly got out of hand. 

The Knicks outscored Denver 77-51, and Holmes seized his opportunity as Adelman went deeper into his bench. In under eight minutes of play, Holmes scored 11 points on 75% shooting from the field.  

Circumstances became so lopsided that Adelman did not feel a need to try and regroup. 

“So, you don’t have to call a timeout, you just let it play out,” he said. “That’s what happens in professional basketball. We had it in Portland — win by 50 or whatever it is. If you’re not going to compete, bad things are going to happen. 

“I mean Jamal going out, the foul trouble, I was pulling people in and out, we never found our rhythm.” 

It was an ugly game for the Nuggets from the perimeter as they were able to hit just eight of their 40 3-point attempts. Additionally, they missed nine free throws. 

The Nuggets were also outplayed in other facets of the game such as rebound differential (50-31) and assist differential (44-30). They were also beaten badly in paint points (76-46), second chance points (17-8) and fastbreak points (22-8). 

Adelman highlighted that 27-28 of Denver’s 3-point attempts were open looks that simply did not fall. That led him to emphasize the need for his team to win the battle in other areas such as loose balls and rebounds. By not playing hard enough, Adelman made it clear that the Nuggets were not able to stay in the game despite poor shooting from the perimeter and the charity stripe.

If Murray does end up missing significant time, it will be a gut punch for the Nuggets with 18 games remaining in the regular season and many formidable opponents in that stretch. Through 59 games, Murray is averaging 25.5 points and 7.2 assists while shooting 43.1% from beyond the arc as the team’s second option behind Jokic.  

Denver will travel to Oklahoma City to face the Thunder on Monday before returning home to host the Houston Rockets on Wednesday.