The Denver Nuggets suffered a rough start to the season with a 96-84 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder and now that game one out of 82 is over and done with, the Nuggets can use what happened in their loss to move forward in a better direction.

The biggest positives to draw from the game was that both forward Aaron Gordon and forward DeMar DeRozan performed well. Gordon, who spent most of last season injured, led all Nuggets with 20 points while shooting 6-9 from the field and adding six rebounds to his stat line.

DeRozan, on the other hand, scored 13 points off the bench, the same amount of points that center Nikola Jokic had, and added two rebounds, but turned the ball over five times. DeRozan's production might have been encouraging, but his lack of control on the floor created costly mistakes for the Nuggets that piled up in a close game.

While Gordon and DeRozan provided the most production, the rest of the team hardly showed up at all, struggling against a comprehensive effort from the Oklahoma City defense. Outside of Gordon, the Denver starting five combined for just 31 points, with only Jokic scoring in the double digits. 

That meager amount of production was mirrored by a quiet night from the bench and looking at just 84 points by the entire team, Denver has a lot of inward searching to do to see why the team struggled so much.

As a team they shot 38% from the field and 27% from three and considering that the Nuggets were one of the NBA's best offenses last season, such a quiet showing is shocking to say the least.

The biggest thing to address is shot creation. Denver was stifled offensively throughout the night and even while limiting the Thunder themselves, Denver only took 82 shots as a team and paired with their inefficiency, there simply wasn't enough production to keep up. 

Even with Jokic on the court, there isn't enough shot creation among the starting five to effectively carry the load and the issue is even more severe for the players coming off the bench. 

No team is immune to a poor shooting night, but Denver has enough raw talent to power through an inefficient night if they're able to generate offense through ball movement. 

That wasn't the case against the Thunder and adding in costly turnovers on top of that isn't sustainable.

Their Opening Night loss has left the Nuggets with a lot to be desired and if they want to start addressing those mistakes, moving the ball more has to be their top priority as a team.