SALT LAKE CITY – Jamal Murray’s sto­ry­book return was undone against the same team where his leg­end first grew: the Utah Jazz.

Play­ing in his first game since April 12, 2021, when he tore his ACL and under­went a gru­el­ing year-and-a-half rehab, Mur­ray had bursts but the Nuggets’ defense was so under­whelm­ing it didn’t mat­ter here Wednes­day night. The Jazz upset the Nuggets, 123–102, as Den­ver opened its sea­son with a resound­ing dud.

“That team dom­i­nat­ed us in every regard,” said Nuggets coach Michael Mal­one, who ham­mered his team’s effort over the first two quarters.

“We didn’t play hard enough in that first half, and that was evi­dent with the rebound­ing,” Mal­one added. Den­ver got out­re­bound­ed 43–35, while Utah thrived off 26 sec­ond-chance points.

Mur­ray man­aged 12 points, includ­ing a hand­ful of ath­let­ic plays that made you believe he wasn’t dwelling on his dev­as­tat­ing injury. Two-time reign­ing MVP Niko­la Jokic, who was mis­tak­en­ly intro­duced to the crowd pre-game as Niko­la Jokovic, poured in 27 on 12-of-17 shoot­ing. And Michael Porter Jr., play­ing his first game since his third back surgery ear­ly last sea­son, fin­ished with 15 points and sev­en rebounds.

But amid their sec­ond-half come­back attempt, for­mer Nugget Malik Beasley buried a cru­cial 3‑pointer from the top of the arc to stretch Utah’s lead to 13. He fol­lowed his make with an extend­ed shim­my, star­ing direct­ly at Denver’s bench.

Utah’s bench outscored Denver’s 68–24, and the Jazz canned 16-of-38 3‑pointers.

Den­ver will get anoth­er chance at their first win of the sea­son on Fri­day when they vis­it defend­ing cham­pi­on Gold­en State.

The Nuggets played the third quar­ter like they’d been embar­rassed in the first two. Their close­outs were more urgent, and their ener­gy ramped up in outscor­ing the Jazz 27–19. In par­tic­u­lar, Porter’s defen­sive engage­ment soared after a lack­lus­ter first half. When he dove on the floor for a loose ball, Denver’s bench stood in uni­son to applaud the effort. The same thing hap­pened when he near­ly blocked Walk­er Kessler’s dunk attempt only a few feet in front of the vis­it­ing bench.

Even Mur­ray got in on the act when he swiped a pass in traf­fic and kicked ahead for a tran­si­tion 3‑pointer by Porter. By the end of the spurt, Den­ver had the deficit down to 94–80.

The renewed effort came 24 min­utes lat­er than it should’ve.

Min­utes into the sec­ond quar­ter, Mur­ray appeared to injure his ankle, which briefly spooked Denver’s offi­cials and forced him back to the lock­er room. He emerged short­ly there­after, but his real­i­ty was appar­ent: his return-to-play will be a process.

“Although he’s play­ing tonight, there’s still so much growth that remains there,” Nuggets coach Michael Mal­one said before the game of where Mur­ray was at com­pared to where he’ll be in sev­er­al months.

His return, cou­pled with Porter Jr.’s, gave Mal­one ear­ly optimism.

“You feel like you’re start­ing to get more whole,” Mal­one said.

Porter played in all five pre­sea­son games after catch­ing a rhythm and telling his coach he didn’t want to rest.

“I feel pret­ty good,” Porter said at shootaround Wednes­day morn­ing. “… I’m com­fort­able where my body’s at physically.”

Every­thing that could’ve gone wrong for the Nuggets in the first half did so. The Jazz shred­ded Denver’s much-dis­cussed defense to the tune of 58% shoot­ing, includ­ing 11 for 22 from the 3‑point line. If it wasn’t old friend Beasley bury­ing a 3‑pointer, then it was for­mer Nuggets for­ward Jarred Van­der­bilt oblit­er­at­ing the Nuggets on the boards. Van­der­bilt had 12 rebounds in 12 min­utes in the first half, high­light­ing a glar­ing lack of com­mit­ment and tough­ness inside from Denver.

Utah pound­ed Den­ver for an astound­ing 75–53 lead at the break. Jazz faith­ful erupt­ed on numer­ous occa­sions as its team, dec­i­mat­ed by off­sea­son trades, seized momentum.

Aaron Gor­don, who opened the sea­son with a reverse dunk, had a team-high 16 points at the half. Jokic had 14 and four assists. But Utah’s blis­ter­ing 3‑point shoot­ing – some the result of lack­adaisi­cal close­outs – exposed a defense that had numer­ous gaps to address.