If you’re not feeling Nuggets fever right now, I don’t know what’s wrong with you. The 2015-16 Nuggets season couldn’t have gotten off to a better start!

The Nuggets didn’t just beat the Houston Rockets, a team that many have as a dark-horse title contender; they destroyed them, winning by 20 and leading from buzzer to buzzer.

Oh, yeah, and they stuck it to Ty Lawson, too.

From top to bottom, it was a near flawless performance. I’m not sure if this is the Nuggets team we’re going to see for the next 81 games, but if anything, I think it was a clear glimpse into the Denver Nuggets’ future.

But let’s break it down. Here are the three biggest takeaways from Wednesday night’s beatdown:

Emmanuel Mudiay showed us everything

I think you have a good idea where this is going, but let’s do it anyway:

PLAYER A: 37 min / 30% field / 66% three / 12 PTS / 6 AST / 4 RBS

PLAYER B: 38 min / 46% field / 60% three / 17 PTS / 9 AST / 5 RBS

In case you didn’t get the general idea of how this game played out, Player B is Emmanuel Mudiay and Player A is Ty Lawson. If Nuggets fans wanted any reassurances that they made the right decision at point guard, they got that and more Wednesday night.

I should probably mention, though, that Mudiay also had 11 turnovers, many of which were really bad, but I wouldn’t be too worried about that; that’s going to happen, especially when you’re playing 38 minutes in your first NBA game against one of the most aggressive defensive teams on the ball and in the passing lanes.

What you should take note of, though, is the fact that Mudiay never backed down; he never curled into a ball, he never got nervous and he never stopped attacking.

And that lead to Mudiay doing something Lawson was never capable of doing: He took over the game.

Throughout his entire career in Denver, all I wanted was for Lawson to be more aggressive, to take over the team and lead them when no one else could, to be a true No. 1 option. He never did that. In Mudiay’s first ever NBA game, he showed us more than Lawson ever had.

For a two minute stretch in the fourth quarter, right after the Rockets had cut the lead to under 10 and the Nuggets were forced to call a timeout, Mudiay put the game back out of reach for good, scoring 7 of the Nuggets next 9 points and assisting on the other two.

We saw Mudiay tell the rest of the Nuggets to clear out so that he could go one-one-one, step back and drop a three-pointer in the Rockets’ face.

… This kid is the real deal. It’s just one game, and he’ll go through plenty of downs this season, but Emmanuel Mudiay is a star.