DENVER — The Denver Nuggets’ worst loss of the season was less than 48 hours old when Tim Connelly, the team’s president of basketball operations, found himself courtside before a game against the Chicago Bulls assessing some lessons of the defeat.

“A loss is never a positive,” Connelly said, “but we have to be realistic about where we stand. We’ve done nothing, and that team has done everything several times over.”

He was referring to the Golden State Warriors, a superstar collective that has demolished its share of opponents in recent years. But what the Warriors did to the Nuggets one night last week was particularly gruesome, in part because Denver had entered the game with a slim lead over Golden State in the N.B.A.’s Western Conference standings.

But then, on Jan. 15, in front of a briefly enthusiastic crowd here, the Warriors scored 51 points in the first quarter and sailed to a 142-111 victory that sent a message to everyone on the opposing bench, inside the building and across the league: We are not going anywhere.