DENVER-
Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer returned to Utah’s lineup and helped the Jazz rout the Denver Nuggets 114-104 on Friday night.
The Jazz, seeking their first division title since 2000, beat the Nuggets for the sixth straight time and increased their lead over second-place Denver to a whopping 9 1/2 games.
Williams scored 26 points and dished out 14 assists. The Jazz’s top assist man, Williams strained his left groin in the Rookie-Sophomore Challenge game All-Star weekend and missed one game.
Boozer, Utah’s leading scorer and rebounder returned to the lineup after missing eight games with a hairline fracture in his left leg. He scored 10 points in 12 carefully managed minutes.
Just as they returned, however, another two Jazz starters went down.
Center Mehmet Okur was inactive because of back spasms, ending his streak of 233 straight starts, and forward Andrei Kirilenko left the game with a bruised knee after banging into Carmelo Anthony in the first half. He finished with no points and one assist in nine minutes.
Still, the Jazz were hardly threatened by a Nuggets team that still fancies itself a division contender despite a lineup that’s been juggled all season because of injuries, illnesses, trades and suspensions.
Coach George Karl’s latest tinkering had Allen Iverson playing the point, Linas Kleiza moving into the starting lineup at off-guard and Steve Blake coming off the bench.
The move was made to put the ball in Iverson’s hands more often, and he did rebound from a season-worst 9-point effort at San Antonio on Tuesday night to score 33 points against the Jazz.
Anthony led the Nuggets with 36 points.
Matt Harpring added 22 points for the Jazz and Utah’s bench outscored Denver’s 70-21.
The Nuggets sorely missed sharpshooter J.R. Smith, who underwent arthroscopic surgery Wednesday after tearing cartilage in his left knee against the Spurs.
Smith, who is out for up to a month, has been coming off the bench and hiding many of the Nuggets’ flaws by allowing them to catch up via the 3-pointer. Without him, the Nuggets fell further and further behind as the Jazz turned a nine-point halftime lead into a 93-74 bulge after three quarters.
The Nuggets trimmed a 21-point deficit to single digits when Melo’s 3-pointer made it 107-98 with 2:54 left. He turned the ball over under the Jazz’s basket with 1:39 left and Denver trailing 109-100.
Notes:@ With Boozer and Williams both back, F Louis Amundson was inactive, denying the Denver native a chance of making his NBA debut at the Pepsi Center. … Jazz assistant coach Phil Johnson was whistled for a technical foul in the third quarter.
