Coby White scored 37 points, Josh Giddey had 26 points and nine assists, and the visiting Chicago Bulls beat the short-handed Denver Nuggets 129-119 on Monday night to wrap up their six-game road trip.
Dalen Terry and Jalen Smith scored 14 points each, Nikola Vucevic had 12 and Matas Buzelis contributed 10 for Chicago (32-40). The Bulls finished 4-2 on their longest road trip of the season.
Jamal Murray scored 28 points, Peyton Watson added a career-high 24, Christian Braun finished with 18, Michael Porter Jr. had 16 and DeAndre Jordan had 10 points and 17 rebounds for Denver. The Nuggets (45-28) were without Nikola Jokic and Aaron Gordon.
Jokic missed his fifth straight game with a left ankle impingement and a sore right elbow and Gordon sat the second game of a back-to-back to manage his right calf. Denver is 2-3 in Jokic’s absence.
The Nuggets opened the fourth with a dunk and a layup by Porter to lead 99-95 but White hit a 3-pointer and a layup, and Russell Westbrook’s fifth turnover of the night led to a Chicago dunk and a 102-99 Bulls lead.
Murray missed a layup and White hit two free throws to stretch the lead to five. Braun converted a three-point play but Terry and Smith hit corner 3-pointers to give the Bulls a 112-103 lead with 6:36 remaining.
Murray and Braun hit 3-pointers but Chicago answered both to keep the advantage at nine, and Giddey drained another from deep, the Bulls’ 16th of the night, to make it 123-111 with 3:47 left.
The Nuggets got it within 125-119 when Westbrook missed a 3-pointer with 1:04 left, and Chicago held on.
Westbrook finished with 14 points and 10 assists.
Denver led by as many as 13 in the first quarter but White’s 15-point second quarter tied it at 65 at halftime.
The Bulls built an 80-74 lead midway through the third quarter but Watson hit a pair of 3-pointers to rally the Nuggets to a 95-93 lead late. White’s layup got it even again heading into the fourth quarter.
–Field Level Media
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