Winning has often been a burdensome enterprise for the Nuggets over the last few weeks. They’ll take every blowout they can get, regardless of the opponent.
They earned their second consecutive victory Sunday afternoon with a 128-112 rout of the Trail Blazers at Ball Arena. Nikola Jokic went for 22 points, 14 rebounds and 14 assists, his 85th career triple-double by the end of the third quarter. Jamal Murray sparked them early with 13 of his 22 points in the opening frame. Cam Johnson added 19 points.
And Peyton Watson enjoyed a largely triumphant return to the court after missing the last six weeks with a right hamstring injury. Playing just shy of 20 minutes on a medical restriction, he amassed 14 points on 13 shots, along with six rebounds and three assists. It was his first game off the bench since Nov. 12. Nuggets coach David Adelman’s review: Watson was fatigued but productive.
“Let’s be patient with Peyton,” he said. “Peyton’s not gonna go play 40 minutes and guard the best player every night the first week he comes back. It’s gonna take some time. Aaron (Gordon) came in the first game against the Knicks. He dunked the ball. We all thought the world had changed. And we lost by 50.”
A spontaneous 3-point shooting competition broke out in the first quarter between Murray, Johnson and Donovan Clingan. The Blazers’ second-year center has been in the process of adding the pick-and-pop to his repertoire this season after rarely shooting 3s in college or his rookie year. He came into Denver shooting them at only 33%, but Jokic and the Nuggets refused to acknowledge him as a serious threat early on. He made his first four attempts, as did Johnson at the other end.
Johnson has emphatically snapped out of the mental funk he was going through in late February and early March. He’s 21 for 36 (58%) from deep in his last seven games, averaging 16.1 points in that time. He was so automatic on Sunday that he drained a meaningless 35-foot heat check after a dead ball. He also extended the line twice when it actually counted, with one deep ball off the dribble and another off the catch in transition.
“We’ve got some good teams on the schedule left in these 10 games, so these are games that we need,” Johnson said.
Both teams inevitably cooled down after making seven of their first 10 outside shots. (It was tied at 31 after seven minutes into the game.) But the Nuggets rarely struggled to generate an open look throughout the afternoon. Jokic was as surgical as he’s looked this month. Five other players tallied multiple assists en route to 37 as a team. Denver shot 54.4% from the field and 39% from three. Seven players scored in double figures.
Defense comes to life
The defense joined the fight after halftime, limiting Portland to 43 points.
“We were not aggressive in the first quarter. I think, actually, the first foul was in the seventh minute or sixth, maybe eighth minute of the second quarter,” said Jokic, who has publicly preached the need to foul more often. “So we just need to use fouls and be aggressive and test the officials. … When we started playing like that in the second half, we were playing much better.”
“A lot of room for us to grow defensively and with the little ins and outs of the game,” Johnson said. “But if we continue to improve in those areas, the ceiling for this team is extremely high. So it’s encouraging.”
Adelman played a nine-man rotation in his first game since November with a fully available roster. Jonas Valanciunas was the odd man out. Spencer Jones played backup center instead, continuing a recent trend of small-ball during Jokic’s rest minutes. Watson reacquainted himself with the defense-oriented second unit.
“When he plays, it’s gonna mess with people that have been in the rotation. We’ve talked about that, and it’s just part of the deal,” Adelman said. “I think it’s super important for the guys to be unselfish and understand that. And as we go forward here — hopefully, knock on wood, we’re fully healthy — that’s gonna happen a lot during games. Certain guys will be cut out of the rotation. Certain guys will play less, like I said. Less opportunity, which means that when you’re out there, you have to give everything that you have in the minutes that you get. That’s gonna be key for us. That’s who we were at the start of the season, a very unselfish group. A lot’s happened.”
The bench unit was wobbly in the first half, but a trio of solid defensive possessions started the fourth quarter with a bang. The Nuggets pushed an 11-point lead to 18 as Jones and Watson made plays to fuel them in transition. Portland never got back within single digits.
