At 9:00 a.m. Beijing time on January 8, the NBA Nuggets hosted the Pistons, with Murray, Pope, Porter, Gordon, and Jokic as the starting five Tigers, and the Pistons' starting lineup was Cunningham, Ivey, Bogdanovic, Livers, and Duren.
At the beginning of the first quarter, Duren easily put in 2 points under the basket, Murray made two free throws and scored 2 points, and then he scored 3 points with an arrow from the outside, and Duren shot back 2 points, and the Nuggets led 5:4 at the beginning. Cunningham hit a 3-pointer from the outside, Porter hit a 2-pointer from mid-range, and the two sides chased after each other, and the Nuggets led the Pistons by 2 points at 31:29 at the end of the first quarter.
The fight continued in the second quarter, Murray scored 2 points under the fast break basket, Osar Thompson hit back 2 points, Murray scored 2 points with a one-handed split, Knox made a foul and made a free throw to add 1 point, Bogdanovic also scored 2 points with a small pull, and the Pistons chased down 34:35 with a difference of 1 point. The two sides fell into offensive mode, and the Pistons trailed the Nuggets by 8 points at 57:65 after two quarters.
Statistics of the two sides in the first half: Nuggets Murray 24 points, 1 rebound and 1 assist, Jokic 4 points, 5 rebounds, 8 assists and 3 blocks, Reggie 7 points, 1 rebound and 5 assists, Porter 11 points, 1 rebound and 2 assists, Pistons Bogdanovic 10 points, 1 rebound, 1 assist and 1 steal, Duren 8 points, 3 rebounds and 2 assists, Burks 13 points, 3 rebounds and 1 assist, Knox 8 points, 2 rebounds and 1 assist.
In the second half, the Nuggets Murray, Porter, and Pope rotated to bomb and score, and teammates Watson and Reggie also continued to add icing on the cake, steadily leading the big score. The Pistons Duren, Ivey, Burks and others successively made a strong effort to catch up with the score. In the end, the fierce battle game ended, and the Nuggets defeated the Pistons 131-114!