With a new-look bench unit, the Denver Nuggets open the season Thursday night on the road against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
“We’ve had a lot of classic games with them over the years,” Nuggets coach David Adelman said. “Have tons of respect for them, the team, the coaching staff. So yeah, we know what kind of high-level game it’s going to be, obviously.”
Denver dealt away Peyton Watson in a sign-and-trade, lost Tim Hardaway Jr. to free agency and signed DeMar DeRozan and Marvin Bagley III in their major offseason moves.
Still, the Nuggets have high expectations, though those aren’t necessarily to compete at the top of the Western Conference with the Thunder and the San Antonio Spurs — during the regular season at least.
“If you don’t have those expectations, this league is daunting,” Adelman said. “I’ve been on the other side of this. Our expectation is to get in the top six. You’re in the top six in the West, you can win the West. I’d love to be one.”
While Denver’s bench will look significantly different from last year’s team that fell in the opening round of the playoffs to the Minnesota Timberwolves, or the 2024-25 team that lost in the second round to Oklahoma City, the starting core is the same with Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray and Aaron Gordon leading the way.
In recent seasons, Luguentz Dort often defended Murray for Oklahoma City. However, with Dort having been traded to the Atlanta Hawks in the offseason, the Thunder’s defensive approach to Murray will be much different.
“I’ll be interested to see how they match up with him,” Adelman said. “Lu Dort’s not there anymore. Obviously they have a lot of very, very capable defenders, so I’m interested to see how they see us.”
While it will be the season opener for the Nuggets, the Thunder have already played, opening their season with a 116-104 win at San Antonio on Tuesday in a rematch of last season’s Western Conference finals.
That game was particularly notable for Chet Holmgren, who struggled against the Spurs in last season’s playoff series but had 14 points, seven rebounds and four blocked shots on Tuesday as Oklahoma City held Victor Wembanyama to 12 points on 1-of-13 shooting.
“Chet is an All-NBA talent on both ends of the floor,” Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said. “When he’s himself, your team is better. It’s as simple as that. When he’s aggressive, when he’s confident, when he’s out there playing his game, he makes your basketball team better. …
“The box score doesn’t show everything he does out there. He changes everything for us.”
Against Jokic and the Nuggets, he figures to need another strong game if Oklahoma City is to win its home opener.
Holmgren said he didn’t just blindly react to last season’s struggles against Wembanyama and the Spurs as he looked to make improvements ahead of this season.
“Emotions don’t really help you,” Holmgren said. “You have to be able to look at things objectively and look at the facts, and that’s what tells you where and how you can improve. That’s the first thing I tried to (do), just remove emotions from it and then look at the tangible things.”
The Thunder won the 2025-26 season series with the Nuggets 3-1.
