The last time the Nuggets lost four consecutive games in Denver, Barack Obama was the president and Nikola Jokic was the rookie who got drafted during a Taco Bell commercial.
Dec. 20, 2015, through Jan. 3, 2016.
One year later, the Jokic era truly began in earnest, when he became an NBA starter on Dec. 15, 2016.
One decade later, the Nuggets lost their fourth straight home game for the first time of the Jokic era.
“It doesn’t feel good,” he said, “to lose in front of our crowd.”
The feeling is unfamiliar to him. Uncomfortable. It’s also more complicated than the utter dejection of a slump. The 2025-26 Nuggets, even after their mystifying 131-121 loss to the Mavericks on Monday, remain narrowly on pace to break the franchise wins record of 57. They remain third in the league in net rating. Simultaneously, in fact, they’ve won seven straight road games, entering a three-game trip that begins Wednesday (5 p.m. MT) at Indiana.
“I guess the only positive about tonight is we’re going back on the road,” first-year coach David Adelman said after a disappointing night against Dallas, which included a blown 17-point lead, a smattering of boos from within Ball Arena and an ankle injury to Jamal Murray.
He was not able to finish the game, making it three starters out for Denver by the end.
“I don’t know how he’s doing. I know he tried (to play), because that’s Jamal. Jamal is tough,” Adelman said. “If he sits himself because of the pain, you know it hurts. I’m hoping it just was something that happened tonight and he can get treatment the next two days, and we can see him come back.”
The longest home losing streak of Jokic’s career and Michael Malone’s tenure was five, about a month before that four-gamer. Denver’s starters in the fifth consecutive loss — Dec. 8, 2015 — were Emmanuel Mudiay, Danilo Gallinari, Kenneth Faried, JJ Dickson and Randy Foye. Jokic went for four points and one assist off the bench.
Denver fans will have to wait two weeks to find out if the 2025-26 Nuggets can match the record with a fifth loss. Their next home game isn’t until Dec. 15 against a dangerous Houston Rockets team. Aaron Gordon (hamstring) and Christian Braun (ankle) will still be on the shelf.
“It seems like we’ve played well in other people’s gyms,” Adelman said. “We’ve gotta figure out what we’re doing here. Because we have not played well in Denver.”
They’ll have to start with what they’re not doing here — playing defense. The lowest score Denver has allowed during the home slump is 128 to Sacramento. The Nuggets have a 130.7 defensive rating across the four games combined — 7.8 points per 100 possessions worse than the worst home-court defensive team in the league this season, Washington.
The Mavericks arrived at Ball Arena ranked dead last in offense, only to shoot 52% from 3-point range and score 54 points in the paint. Ryan Nembhard, who’s on a two-way contract and therefore isn’t on their active 15-man roster, started at point guard. He amassed 28 points and 10 assists on 12 of 14 shooting.
“We feel that the game is easier than it is and it’s gonna stay that way,” said Nuggets forward Spencer Jones, another two-way player who’s been forced into the starting lineup by injuries. “… We take the foot off the gas a little too early, and we do that kind of often. It’s just that mindset of staying focused throughout (the game), because we know we’re so talented. And it’s great to have that confidence. But sometimes that can turn into arrogance.”
Adelman keeps pinpointing physicality. The Nuggets spent training camp and the preseason declaring their goal to be more handsy and aggressive defensively this season, to force the referees to call fouls like Oklahoma City does so effectively. Adelman thinks they’ve implemented that in small stretches, but only that. Denver committed only 11 fouls as a team on Monday, as he was quick to note in his postgame comments.
“That says you’re not putting your hands on people, and they’re running free,” Adelman said. “And they did. … This team has obviously really struggled to shoot the ball this year, and they had a night where they make 16 threes. But you couple that with our inability to get into people and get into the ball.”
Jokic also emphasized that philosophy to The Denver Post after a home loss last Friday, only to play a lackluster defensive game himself against Dallas. Why exactly is the aggressive mindset proving so difficult to put into practice?
Well, change is hard.
“I think because we never did it (in the past). I think none of our players did that,” Jokic said. “I think (Braun) is the one probably doing it the most, and Spencer now. But the rest of us are not doing that. Peyton (Watson), a little bit.”
Adelman was allergic to excuses Monday, but the schedule isn’t helping the Nuggets either. They’re essentially in the middle of a month-long road trip right now that includes their home games — all four of their losses at Ball Arena have been quick stop-ins surrounded by flights to and from other cities.
In the last two weeks, they’ve gone from Houston to Denver to Memphis to Denver to Phoenix to Denver to Indianapolis.
“Definitely weird. I’ve never had a schedule like this before,” said Bruce Brown, who played through illness Monday. “But it’s the NBA. We’ve gotta take care of home.”
In spite of the same obstacles outside of Denver — the flights, the restlessness of road life — the Nuggets have a 114.7 defensive rating during their seven-game road win streak. This is a team that has averaged a road record of 22-19 over the last three seasons. In the last month, it has defeated talented Western Conference opponents including the Rockets, Timberwolves and Suns in hostile territory, also while missing multiple starters in each of those games. Consider Jokic bewildered.
“I really don’t know (why). It just happens to be like that, it seems like,” he said. “I really don’t know the answer.”
“The team has always been great at home, so there’s that expectation that we’ll pull through,” Jones theorized. “So maybe you lose a little bit of focus there.”
That expectation is derived from scientifically accepted data that indicates Denver possesses a more potent home-court, home-field and home-ice advantage than any other U.S. city. There’s a reason Nuggets public address announcer Kyle Speller introduces every visiting team with the elevation at which they play — in Houston’s case two weeks from now, “a whopping 55 feet above sea level.”
Altitude is supposed to be impenetrable against tourist teams. One day in Colorado isn’t meant to be enough to acclimate.
Losing four in a row at Ball Arena is a foreign concept. Especially with Jokic at full power.
The year before he came over from Serbia, the Nuggets suffered a 10-game home losing streak that cost coach Brian Shaw his job. They snapped the skid a few hours after he was fired.
This scenario is nowhere near as bleak, of course. It’s likely an outlier for a talented team going through the motions of a long season, feeling the absences of its injured. That doesn’t make it any less of a disappointment.
“I’m not going to come in here any night and sit down and talk about guys that are out,” Adelman said. “We have enough here to be more consistent defensively.”