PHOENIX – Unlike the last two years, the Nuggets weren’t surrounded by the comforts of home this Christmas.

Brought from the mountains and dropped in the desert, they found no flow in a 110-100 loss to the Suns.

Bradley Beal and Kevin Durant combined for 52 points with impressive shooting from inside the arc, and Denver’s offense had an unusual flair at the Footprint Center. In a matchup following their 27-point win Monday at Ball Arena, the Nuggets (16-12) scored 16 goals in the final game of the NBA’s 10-hour holiday schedule.

Nikola Jokic led the Nuggets with 25 points but was held to 10 after the first quarter.

Everything was going well for him early on. The Nuggets ran their offense through Michael Porter Jr. in the first five minutes, then after Malone called his first timeout, they isolated Jokic on the right wing. He knocked down an 18-footer and gained momentum from there, scoring 15 points on 6 of 7 shots in the final 6:46 of the frame. He helped Jusuf Nurkic with two more early fouls. He converted an and-one after collecting one of Russell Westbrook’s best bounce passes of the year, blindly wrapping it around an unsuspecting Mason Plumlee.

The problem was that everything was going well for Phoenix too. On Monday, the Suns’ 90 points were the fewest Denver had allowed all season. On Wednesday, her 38 by the end of the first quarter was the result of her 6-for-7 start from the 3-point line, where Denver got open looks.

The Suns cooled off in the second minute and Denver weathered Jokic’s rest minutes down by two, highlighted by two lobs to DeAndre Jordan and a cracking one-handed put-back jam to Julian Strawther. When Jokic returned, he had also cooled down. The rim was persistent on his right 3-point attempts, where he was used to seeing nothing but goals this season. The Nuggets had no consistent source for secondary creation. Porter was the only other double-digit scorer at halftime with 11 goals, most of which were piled up in the disorganized opening minutes. Jamal Murray wanted to pass.