NEW ORLEANS — It can be a nightmare facing Anthony Davis. He’s long, athletic and can score, rebound, steal and block shots.

Yet somehow, the Nuggets turned all of that into their own dream scenario.

Davis racked up all the production one player’s heart could desire, but even 50 points, 16 rebounds, seven steals and four blocks were not enough to avoid a 107-102 loss to the Nuggets on Wednesday night in the opening game of the season at the Smoothie King Center.

“Anthony Davis, give him credit, he got 50 points,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said. “The Denver Nuggets got the win, and that’s the most important thing.”

The Nuggets received big play from a big man of their own.

Jusuf Nurkic has said he’s back and insisted he would earn back the “Bosnian Beast” label. He wasn’t lying. He was nearly unstoppable on his way to a career-high 23 points, adding nine rebounds and three assists. The Nuggets bludgeoned New Orleans with a steady Nurkic diet for three quarters before not playing him in the fourth. In 26 minutes, he bulled and bullied any player guarding him, scoring repeatedly in the post and grabbing almost any rebound in his vicinity.

“Like I told you in the preseason, this year is going to be my year and I’ll do whatever I need to do to win the game,” Nurkic said. “Even if I didn’t play in the fourth quarter, whatever the coach decides, I was with the team.”

He wasn’t the only one.

Kenneth Faried was singled out by Nuggets coach Michael Malone as the player of the game.

“We don’t win the game without Kenneth Faried’s energy up-and-down the floor,” Malone said. “I thought he was fantastic in that fourth quarter.”

Faried’s fourth: six points, three rebounds, two charges drawn and two huge defensive stops on Anthony Davis.

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And the Nuggets needed it.

Because, on the flip side, they were turning the ball over at unacceptable levels. They had so many turnovers (25) that it threatened to derail everything they had done well to get a lead and maintain it for just about the entire game.

And as the turnovers piled up, the game tightened up. The Nuggets had led by as many as 14 points, but the Pelicans got that down to two with 57 seconds left in the fourth quarter and the crowd ready to explode with another basket.

But Faried forced the Davis misses and the Nuggets cleaned up their execution enough to make a bunch of solid performances stand up. Will Barton scored 11 of his 22 points in the third quarter. Danilo Gallinari scored 15 points.

But what satisfied the Nuggets’ coaching staff the most was defense. Aside from a couple of breakdowns, the Nuggets did what they needed to do. Davis scored nearly at will, but he took 34 shots to do it, and the Nuggets didn’t allow another player to have a big scoring night.

“When you play against a great player, you have a problem that you have to answer,” Malone said. “Are you going to shut him down and create problems elsewhere, or are you going to let him get his and hope nobody else goes off.”

The Nuggets chose the latter.

So, for the most part, it was Davis vs. the Nuggets. It’s hard to imagine Davis won’t have a night of heavy lifting. There just isn’t much help around him. The Nuggets were OK with that, holding every player not named Anthony Davis to five points or fewer in the first half. E’Twaun Moore and Tim Frazier eventually hit double figures in scoring, but the damage had already been done. New Orleans was held to just 41 percent shooting.

Meanwhile, the Nuggets hit 44.6 percent of their shots. They attacked the rim relentlessly. They grabbed 58 rebounds.

And at the end of all of it, they grabbed a victory.