Bennett Durando is the Denver Nuggets beat writer for The Denver Post. Before moving to Colorado, where he started as The Post's Avalanche beat writer, he covered SEC football, basketball and other sports for five years: first reporting on his alma mater, Missouri, for the St.
Instead, Nikola Jokic and company did enough to escape a somewhat sloppy nightcap at Ball Arena. The Nuggets held off their short-handed visitors and incurred a few losses of their own in a 116-93 win.
. Jokic went for 25 points, 15 rebounds and eight assists to lead all scorers. Tim Hardaway Jr. and Bruce Brown combined for 31 off the bench. Jamal Murray added 20 points, six boards and seven assists. The Nuggets overcame one of their sloppiest first halves of the season offensively, easily erasing a 10-point deficit for their sixth consecutive win. They’re going into a quiet penultimate week of the regular season, with two days of rest, a quick trip to Utah, then another two two days off. It seems to be good timing. Denver ran into a familiar dilemma throughout the game Sunday as its forwards started dropping like flies. First it was Gordon, who woke up Sunday with tightness in his left calf. A precautionary scratch, he was replaced by Peyton Watson in the starting lineup. But Watson has been on a minutes restriction since returning from a right hamstring strain, and Adelman didn’t want to push him beyond 20. Even in limited playing time, Watson picked up four fouls before halftime, getting himself in trouble. Spencer Jones left the game after the first quarter with right hamstring tightness of his own, forcing Adelman to improvise. He had been using Jones as a backup center recently. Still wanting to play a defense-first second unit, he went to Zeke Nnaji at the five. Cam Johnson went to the locker room early in the third quarter grabbing the right side of his torso and wincing. He was categorized as questionable with back spasms. Nnaji suddenly had to slot in at power forward next to Jokic, with Watson at 16 minutes. Then Nnaji took an elbow to the face from Kristaps Porzingis and landed awkwardly. He joined Johnson and Jones in the locker room, out with left hip impingement. In a matter of hours, the Nuggets had gone from five forwards to half of one.Grading The Week: Nuggets’ David Adelman needs to go small in non-Jokic minutes to dream bigNuggets escape Utah Jazz with furious late comeback, Cam Johnson game-winnerThey had almost no choice but to roll with Jonas Valanciunas and four guards to start the fourth quarter. Valanciunas saw his first action since March 18 after being out of the rotation for five consecutive games. Deploying a zone, Denver scraped by for five minutes, outscoring the Warriors by two before subbing Jokic and Watson back in together. The closest Golden State got during the final frame was within nine. Jokic was able to check out with two minutes to go, narrowly missing out on a fifth consecutive triple-double. Before Nnaji went down, he exchanged his headband for a hard hat. The 25-year-old came to the defense of Jamal Murray after an exchange of bumps early in the second quarter, sparking a minor altercation. Nnaji grabbed De’Anthony Melton’s jersey in the fracas. Gary Payton II ripped Nnaji’s headband off as the confrontation was winding down. All three players picked up technical fouls. That meant a free throw for Denver; Nnaji was rewarded for playing the enforcer.Denver’s $1 billion road overhaul would cut space for cars, boost public transit and safety. Critics say it will make traffic worse. Denver's $1 billion road overhaul would cut space for cars, boost public transit and safety. Critics say it will make traffic worse.Colorado doctor refused to call 911, start CPR before man’s death, indictment saysDozens of No Kings protests planned Saturday across Colorado: 'This is what democracy looks like'Denver is planning major road remodeling projects. Here's where some of them are happening.
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