TORONTO — When the Nuggets vis­it­ed Cana­da in March, it was the nadir of an even­tu­al cham­pi­onship season.

They allowed a sea­son-worst 49 points in the first quar­ter and nev­er recov­ered in a fourth con­sec­u­tive loss — part of a lull late in the reg­u­lar sea­son that briefly made Den­ver look like a wob­bly No. 1 seed.

That melt­down was still on Michael Malone’s mind before tip­ping off against the Rap­tors on Wednes­day night. But what fol­lowed at Sco­tia­bank Cen­ter this time was more indica­tive of what the Nuggets went on to accom­plish after that los­ing streak. Play­ing cham­pi­onship-cal­iber team bas­ket­ball (and allow­ing only 20 in the first quar­ter this time), Den­ver opened a three-game road trip with a convincing-until-it-wasn’t 113–104 win over the Raptors.

A 21-point mar­gin in the third quar­ter got as close as five with five min­utes remain­ing, but Denver’s three best scor­ers went on a con­clu­sive surge, scor­ing from all three lev­els to re-estab­lish a 12-point lead with 3:24 left. Niko­la Jokic pot­ted a pair of bas­kets near the rim, home­town kid Jamal Mur­ray cool­ly drained a midrange jumper, and Michael Porter Jr. hit a three.

Jokic, com­ing off a rare “triple-sin­gle” game Mon­day in which he didn’t touch 10 in any of the three main stat cat­e­gories, record­ed his 400th career dou­ble-dou­ble in the win: 31 points, 15 rebounds, six assists and two blocks. He has now reg­is­tered a 30-point game against every team in the NBA dur­ing his career, Toron­to being the final step.

“No. That’s nice,” Jokic said when asked if the 30-point mile­stone means any­thing to him. “I bet there are some play­ers who’ve scored more than 30 against every team.”

His most impres­sive play, though, might have been a behind-the-back pass under­neath the bas­ket to find Aaron Gor­don for an easy layup.

“The pass­es that he makes are always just, ‘How did you see that guy?’” Mal­one said.

Mur­ray amassed 20 points and six assists. All five Den­ver starters scored in dou­ble figures.

“I appre­ci­ate Toron­to for hav­ing me on the screen and all that,” Mur­ray said of his lat­est home­com­ing. “Just lit­tle stuff like that means a lot. … It’s good to come here and try to put on a show in front of my friends and family.”

The Nuggets shot 54.9% from the field in the first half while hold­ing Toron­to to 42.2%. They turned sev­en steals through­out the sec­ond quar­ter into 10 tran­si­tion points, with the young sec­ond unit build­ing on its recent run of pro­duc­tive games. Pey­ton Wat­son, Chris­t­ian Braun and Julian Strawther all had steals. Zeke Nna­ji blocked a pair of shots, play­ing the sec­ond time in three nights after a stretch of DeAn­dre Jor­dan games at back­up center.

Wat­son con­tin­ued to be the most encour­ag­ing bench play­er at both ends. He shot 5 of 6 from the field, made a 3‑pointer for the fourth con­sec­u­tive game, assist­ed a Jokic three and added four rebounds. He also han­dled the Pas­cal Siakam defen­sive assign­ment when their min­utes overlapped.

The Nuggets outscored the Rap­tors 62–56 in the paint (though 40 of those 64 were in the first half), 22–12 on fast breaks and 18–10 on sec­ond chances. They con­trolled the glass with a 57–46 advantage.

“I thought we made it real­ly hard for them, and we were forc­ing turnovers,” Mal­one said. “… I felt to start the game, we were great (defen­sive­ly). But we just didn’t car­ry through in the sec­ond half, and that game got more inter­est­ing than it should have. So that’s our chal­lenge, to play as close to 48 min­utes as pos­si­ble, on both ends.”

The one con­found­ing area of an almost-com­plete per­for­mance was the foul line. Den­ver didn’t attempt a free throw until a Jokic and-one with 2:27 left in the third quar­ter. The bonus point gave the Nuggets their largest lead of the night before Toron­to made its push.

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