NEW YORK — The Nuggets’ longest road trip of the sea­son end­ed with a kick in the butt and a poke in the eye.

Den­ver trailed by as many as 38 and nev­er led in a 122–84 loss to the Knicks on Thurs­day night at Madi­son Square Gar­den, snap­ping a three-game win streak. The Nuggets (31–15) fin­ish their five-game, 12-day East­ern Con­fer­ence swing with a 3–2 record. Still, they’ll return to Col­orado a lit­tle bit blood­ied and need­ing to bounce back when Joel Embi­id and the 76ers vis­it for a Sat­ur­day mati­nee rematch.

Niko­la Jokic went to the lock­er room with a left eye injury after get­ting poked by Knicks guard Donte DiVin­cen­zo with 4:01 left in the sec­ond quar­ter. Jokic col­lapsed to the court kick­ing his legs in pain after the play, which result­ed in a com­mon foul on DiVincenzo.

“It was painful of course, but hope­ful­ly it’s going to be OK,” Jokic said, adding that it affect­ed his vision.

The two-time MVP remained down for a few min­utes with his hands over his face before ris­ing, stay­ing in to take the free throws, and then check­ing out of the game. He didn’t return to the bench for the remain­der of the half, but he emerged to start the sec­ond half with noth­ing more than a red eye.

“It was good, but now it’s get­ting worse again,” Jokic said. “So it was get­ting bet­ter. Now it’s get­ting worse.”

“I’ve been there,” Aaron Gor­don said. “You take a jab to the eye, you just see stars, and then you can’t real­ly see any­thing. … It’s not a fun feel­ing. It’s just a nasty feeling.”

Jokic fin­ished the game with 31 points, 11 rebounds and sev­en turnovers. He shot 13 for 18 and didn’t play in the fourth quar­ter with the game out of reach and an after­noon tip wait­ing in Den­ver. In a blowout rem­i­nis­cent of the last game of the Nuggets’ oth­er five-game trip this sea­son, they sim­ply didn’t have legs from the jump, and Jokic was their only source of pro­duc­tion ear­ly. It took until the 4:28 mark of the first quar­ter for a Nugget oth­er than him to make a shot from the field: Aaron Gor­don, with an open dunk result­ing from anoth­er no-look, behind-the-back pass by Jokic.

By then, it was already 25–10, Knicks. At the end of the quar­ter, Jokic had col­lect­ed 13 points and sev­en rebounds. His team­mates were a com­bined 3 for 15 from the field, with eight points and five rebounds. In that oth­er long trip finale — Black Fri­day at Hous­ton — Jokic had 14 points and eight boards at the end of the first frame while the rest of the Nuggets were 1 for 16.

Mean­while, Den­ver was con­sis­tent­ly laps­ing in both its perime­ter and inte­ri­or defense. The Knicks had made 7 of 16 shots beyond the arc only four min­utes into the sec­ond quar­ter, en route to a 15-for-38 night. They didn’t miss a 2‑point attempt until the last 40 sec­onds of the first. They shot 52.4% for the game, outscor­ing the Nuggets 22–13 on sec­ond chances and 23–5 on fast breaks.

“We played like a very tired team,” Mal­one said.

New York is now 11–2 since trad­ing for O.G. Anuno­by, one of the most mal­leable defend­ers in the league. The for­mer Toron­to Rap­tor received resound­ing chants of his ini­tials as he exit­ed in the fourth quar­ter with 26 points and a remark­able six steals. The Nuggets, one of the best assist-to-turnover teams in the league, were stunt­ed with just 20 assists and 19 turnovers.

“There’s a rea­son the crowd was chant­i­ng ‘OG.’ He was out­stand­ing,” Mal­one said. “… He brings defense. He brings offense. He brings tough­ness. He brings phys­i­cal­i­ty. He and the rest of the guys in the New York Knicks uni­forms tonight, they were ter­rif­ic from begin­ning to end.”

Jalen Brun­son added 21 points on 7‑of-10 shoot­ing, 30 min­utes after bare­ly miss­ing a spot in the East­ern Conference’s start­ing line­up announce­ment for the upcom­ing All-Star Game.

“Today’s NBA play­ers are all on their phone, so if I said, ‘I don’t think he’s an NBA (All-Star) play­er,’ then he’s got extra moti­va­tion … so he should be an All-Star,” Mal­one joked pregame. “On a seri­ous note, he’s a tremen­dous play­er. He can hurt you from the 3‑point line. He gets to the bas­ket. Very shifty, crafty in pick-and-rolls. … I’d be hard-pressed to find guys that are ahead of him to be wor­thy of All-Star position.”

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