The Denver Nuggets blew out the defending champions in their own building Sunday night with a 136-100 win. Denver put on its best team performance of the season. They knocked down 23 3-pointers, scored 44 points in the paint and dished out a season-high 39 assists.
“Team win,” Michael Malone said. “The ball movement was fantastic. To come in here and beat this team, win every quarter and to get contributions from so many people it was really fun to watch. I thought our second half defense was incredible.”
Aaron Gordon scored a team-high 24 points on 10-17 shooting. He also had seven rebounds. Nikola Jokic finished the night with 18 points, nine rebounds and 15 assists. Monte Morris added 18 points as well, shooting 7-8 from the field and 4-5 from beyond the arc and Will Barton put up 15 points on 6-7 shooting.
“For seven years we’ve had an unselfish team,” Malone said. “This is something that we preach everyday. It’s not just Nikola’s responsibility. It’s everyone’s responsibility.”
The Nuggets had a lot of fire power come off their bench. They scored 59 points all told, led by Bryn Forbes’ 14 points. Bones Hyland added 13 points, five rebounds and six assists. The rookie has played a key role for Denver as a combo guard, using his speed to overwhelm defenses, his passing ability to get his teammates open for shots and his lethal shooting from long range.
“The trust level has gone from like a six to a nine right now,” Hyland said. “Everybody is trusting each other. Everybody is on the same page. You can tell everybody is used to playing with each other. Everybody knows each others strengths and weaknesses, where they like the ball and where they don’t and everybody’s starting to make more shots, too.”
Denver is on a 5-game winning streak and has won four in a row on the road. It has also won 10 of its last 13 games.
The Bucks and Nuggets went about scoring in different ways in the first quarter. While Denver caught fire from beyond the arc, scoring six 3-pointers, Milwaukee dominated the paint with an 18-8 advantage. Monte Morris went perfect from the field for eight points while Nikola Jokic added six points and eight assists. Bones Hyland hit consecutive 3s off the bench to give Denver a 29-23 lead with 2:43 left. Giannis Antetokounmpo kept things close for Milwaukee with seven points and Grayson Allen had eight points with two triples but Denver had a 33-30 lead after one.
Malone rolled with his second unit for the first half of the second quarter and they extended the lead to 41-32. Hyland was on fire and hit another 3 and knocked down a pair of free throws. Milwaukee then cut the deficit to four so Malone put his starters back in at the 6:52 mark.
Aaron Gordon wasted no time and knocked down back-to-back triples to give Denver a 52-42 lead. He had eight points in the quarter. Jrue Holiday displayed his explosive moves to the basket scoring ten points and Antetokounmpo put up another 15 to get the Bucks to within seven. But Will Barton closed out the quarter with five straight points to give Denver a 65-57 halftime lead.
The Nuggets had their way with the Bucks in the third quarter and knocked down six more 3-pointers. They opened the third quarter on a 11-5 run after Gordon hit a 3-pointer and threw down a dunk that gave the Nuggets the 77-62 lead.
The Bucks called a timeout to regroup but they had no answer for the Mile High club as they went on another run behind Jokic’s five straight points to go up 86-66. The Bucks then responded with a 6-0 run of their own but the Nuggets were just too much to handle as they closed it out on a 14-9 run to take a 103-81 lead.
Jokic and the rest of the starters didn’t play a minute in the fourth quarter. Denver’s bench was able to hold things down and scored a few more triples in the opening minutes to take a 114-88 lead. Bryn Forbes scored nine straight points for the Nuggets to extend their lead and the rest is history. The bench shot 59 percent from the field and 60 percent from beyond the arc while holding Milwaukee to just 33 percent shooting from the field and 25 percent from long range. The Nuggets won 136-100.
Antetokounmpo finished the night with 29 points and nine rebounds. Jrue Holiday added 14 points, five rebounds and eight assists and Allen and Bobby Portis added 11 a piece.
Denver heads to Minnesota next to take on the Timberwolves on Tuesday night and then travel to Utah to face the Jazz on Wednesday. The Nuggets are now sitting in fifth place in the Western Conference standings with a 28-21 record. They’re one game behind the Jazz for the 4-seed.
