Nikola Jokic scored 35 and Jamal Murray added 34 to lift the Denver Nuggets to a 140-127 win over the Oklahoma City Thunder on the road Monday.
The Nuggets’ win snapped a seven-game winning streak for the Thunder and gave Denver a tie in the season series, with each team winning two games each.
The game came the night after Sunday’s 127-103 Thunder win over Denver.
The Nuggets’ 140 points was tied for the most given up by Oklahoma City this season. It was Denver’s seventh game with 140 or more points.
The tide turned in the third quarter, when the Nuggets erased a nine-point deficit to take a 101-99 lead heading into the fourth.
Murray scored 11 of his points in the third as Denver scored 34 points in the frame.
The Nuggets kept pouring it in in the fourth, outscoring Oklahoma City 39-28 and stretching their lead as big as 16.
Oklahoma City has led the league in scoring off turnovers much of the season but in the fourth, it was Denver taking advantage of turnovers on the other side, scoring 10 points off five Thunder turnovers.
Jokic had 10 points, four rebounds and three assists in the fourth.
He finished with 18 rebounds and eight assists, narrowly missing what would’ve been his 30th triple-double of the season.
Early in the second quarter, Thunder all-star Jalen Williams came down hard on his hip.
Williams remained in the game for a couple minutes before leaving the game in his normal spot about midway through the quarter.
But Williams quickly left the bench and headed for the locker room. He didn’t return with what the team called a right hip strain.
Luguentz Dort led Oklahoma City with 26 points, while Shai Gilgeous-ALeander added 25 points, seven assists and a pair of blocks.
Isaiah Hartenstein scored 20 in the loss.
Chet Holmgren, playing both ends of a back-to-back for the first time since returning from missing nearly three months due to a broken pelvis, was just 3 for 11 from the field, missing all five of his 3-pointers.
The Nuggets were without Aaron Gordon, who left Sunday’s loss with a calf injury and is also suffering from a left ankle sprain.
–Field Level Media
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