Jokic finished with 30, but the Nuggets missed a chance to tie Orlando in the closing minutes.

Even during the holidays, the Nuggets’ life on the road is still difficult.

With less than two minutes left, Paolo Banchero scored a fortuitous bounce 3-pointer to give Denver a 118-115 lead. Denver never recovered as they lost 124-119 to the tenacious Magic on Wednesday night at Amway Center.

With about six minutes remaining in the game, Nikola Jokic recorded a triple-double with thirty points, thirteen rebounds, and twelve assists. In addition, he had only one turnover and three thefts.

With 3:36 left in the fourth quarter, the Magic had gone on an 8-0 run to grab a 112-108 lead. After a timeout, the Nuggets responded with a brilliant play that put Kentavious Caldwell-Pope in for a three. On the following play, Denver regained the lead thanks to a driving basket by Aaron Gordon, which forced an Orlando timeout.

The Nuggets, down 118-115, made a stop and, with 27.3 seconds remaining, called their last timeout. Rather than attempting to knot it right away, they constructed a post-up for Jokic, and he was able to trim it to one. Jokic followed up with a drive for two after Orlando scored its free throws. With 4.3 seconds remaining, however, Jalen Suggs continued to draw fouls, and Aaron Gordon flung the inbound ball straight to Franz Wagner, setting up a game-winning turnover. As a result, the Nuggets were out of timeouts.

With 28 points at the end of the game, Wagner led the Magic. Banchero included twenty-three. The Nuggets never tried to use a three-point shot to tie the game.

On 5 of 9 attempts from beyond the arc, Michael Porter Jr. scored 25 points.

The Nuggets avoided a poor start for the first time on this road trip. Even in Detroit, the one game when Denver did not behind by ten points at the beginning of the game, the Pistons led 15–7 long before Nikola Jokic and Michael Malone were sent off. In a matter of minutes, the Nuggets led 10-3 this time. The only thing stopping Denver from maintaining control as Porter and company lit the house up was subpar inside defense. After an offensive rebound in the first half, the Magic hit 18 of 23 in the paint and 6 of 7 from beyond the arc. This resulted in an unusual scenario where the Nuggets led by two possessions at halftime despite being outscored heavily inside (36-20).

Denver scored 30.5% of its points from beyond the arc, which was good for 22nd place, and 50.7% of its points in the paint going into the game, which was the second-highest frequency in the league. However, the offense relied heavily on jump shooting to reach its 62-point halftime lead, which was highlighted by Jackson’s clutch 17-foot circus jumper just before the buzzer while drawing a foul.

While all of the Denver players who scored in double digits in the first half fell silent, Wagner scorched Orlando with a 15-point third quarter. Jokic scored two, Jackson scored none, Porter scored four, and Gordon scored two. Instead, two players who had not scored at halftime suddenly stood up. In order to guarantee that the team broke even and maintained a six-point lead entering the fourth quarter, Caldwell-Pope and Julian Strawther both scored seven points.