"I wish I could wipe the slate clean, to be honest with you, I wish we could start over," said Bosh in a sombre post-game locker-room on what should have been a festive evening. "We definitely have a challenge ahead of us."

Nene scored 21 points, while Carmelo Anthony added 20 to lead the Denver Nuggets to a 114-107 win, handing Toronto its 13th loss in their last 17 games and its fourth straight National Basketball Association defeat at the Air Canada Centre.

Andrea Bargnani topped the slumping 12-20 Raptorswith 26 points, while Bosh had 24 points and a team-high 11 rebounds. Jose Calderon finished with 18 points and 11 assists, while Will Solomon had 11 points. Jamario Moon added 10 points for the Raptors, who were playing without starters Jermaine O'Neal (knee) and Jason Kapono (quadriceps).

The Nuggets' win boosted their record to 21-12 and marked No. 900 in head coach George Karl's illustrious coaching career.

The Raptors were playing New Year's Eve hosts for the first time in franchise history, and were hoping to head into 2009 on a winning note. They were finally back home after going 2-4 on a gruelling season-high six-game Western road trip. And the Raptors, who had been booed out of the building in their last game at the Air Canada Centre, a 96-86 loss to Dallas Mavericks, Dec. 17, were in the game until the dying moments.

The Nuggets ended the third on an 11-0 run to take an 85-77 lead into the final 12 minutes, an ugly stretch that saw Jay Triano lose his cool. The furious head coach called a timeout after a three by Chauncey Billups, briefly hollered at his team then went and sat alone on the bench, leaving his befuddled players to figure it out for themselves.

"It was a mental mistake," said Bosh of the reason for the timeout. "You can't have mistakes like that in a game. It can't happen over and over. Once OK, we get it, but not two or three times. The reason he called that was because we messed up on a coverage, and they scored, and I'm sure it frustrates him because he says 'do this, do that,' and when it's not done five times out of 10, that's no good."

Calderon drained a three with 4:22 left to cut Denver's lead to 101-98, bringing the crowd of 18,879 to its feet - but the good feelings were short-lived. A basket by Nene sparked a 7-0 Denver run that put the visitors up by 10 points with 2:01 to go as the Nuggets cruised to a win.

"We have too many lapses, we don't play the intense Basketball we need to play for the whole game, we always have a gap in the 48 minutes," Bosh said. "It's been a struggle early on, things really haven't gone our way. But we haven't played Basketball that we're capable of playing yet. The good news is, we still have time to make it up."

Karl sipped on a celebratory beer in the Denver dressing room after.

"I'm not a champagne guy. I'm a beer guy and some red wine, but I think it's Coors Light tonight. Beer after a win tastes like champagne."

The four-game losing skid at home marks the first time Toronto has dropped four straight at the ACC since a five-game skid March 29-April 9, 2006.

Triano said the Raps the confidence to bounce back in games.

"I don't think in the history of the game anybody's pitched a shut out. There's going to be a basket scored against you and we can't stop and look around like 'Who's fault is this? Why did we get scored on?' Throw the ball inbounds and play," Triano said. "We've got to play through mistakes. The game is full of mistakes and it's how you react to them, and right now I don't think we're reacting really well when a team scores on us, and we have to get over that."

The Raptors host the Houston Rockets tonight.