Ryan Nembhard finished with 28 points and 10 assists, both career-highs, Anthony Davis scored a season-high 32 points and grabbed 13 rebounds, and the visiting Dallas Mavericks beat the Denver Nuggets 131-121 on Monday night.
Cooper Flagg had 24 points and Klay Thompson added 15 for Dallas, which has won consecutive games for the first time this season.
Spencer Jones scored 28 points to set a career-high for the second straight game and Nikola Jokic had 29 points, 20 rebounds and 13 assists for Denver.
Nuggets guard Jamal Murray went to the floor while ballhandling early in the third quarter and walked to the locker room with 56 seconds gone in the period.
He returned a few minutes later but didn’t play in the fourth quarter. He finished with 10 points and nine assists.
Peyton Watson contributed 15 points and Tim Hardaway Jr. also scored 13 points for Denver, which has lost four straight at home.
Jones scored a career-high 16 points in Phoenix on Saturday night and nearly had that in the first quarter when he scored 14 on 6-for-6 shooting.
Jokic notched his 11th triple-double of the season and 175th of his career with his 10th assist with 7:12 left in the third quarter.
The Nuggets went ahead 112-108 on a Jones dunk early in the fourth but Dallas hit a trio of 3-pointers to lead 118-114. Jokic hit a 3-pointer, Denver’s last of the game, but the Mavericks closed it out with a 13-4 run.
The Nuggets missed 10 straight shots — six from 3-point range — in the final 6:12.
Denver raced out to a 21-4 lead and led by 14 with 5:59 left in the second quarter but Dallas caught fire. The Mavericks scored 16 straight points and outscored the Nuggets 22-7 the rest of the period and took a 69-68 lead into halftime.
Denver quickly grabbed a four-point lead in the third quarter but Dallas rallied again and took a 98-96 lead on a Flagg alley-oop from Nembhard.
The Nuggets closed out the quarter strong to lead 104-102 heading into the fourth.
–Field Level Media
