The Denver Nuggets five game winning streak has come to an end after falling to the Dallas Mavericks 111-101 at the American Airlines Center in Dallas.
Nikola Jokic led all scorers with 35 points on 15-for-26 shooting in addition to 16 rebounds and six assists but it wasn’t enough to contain Dallas in the fourth quarter.
“They outscored us 62-43 in that second half,” Nuggets head coach Michael Malone said. “We had two fast break points in the second half. We stopped running because we stopped getting stops. Fourth game in 6 nights. Second night of a back-to-back, it has been a tough stretch for us but I thought our guys competed and played hard so we’re looking forward to going home, getting some rest, trying to get healthy to get ready for this back-to-back at home.”
Injuries seem to be a recurring theme for the Mile High club and it was no different on Monday night. Denver was without two key starters in Will Barton and Michael Porter Jr. It was also missing Zeke Nnaji off the bench. The lack of depth showed on the second night of a back-to-back.
In the first quarter, the Nuggets got off to a good start with two straight buckets from Jokic. One on a fast break and the other on a dunk. He had nine points in the opening 12 minutes minutes of the game. Monte Morris also got things going early with eight points to help give Denver a 23-19 lead but Dallas came clawing back after Kristaps Porzingis knocked down a couple 3-pointers to steal the lead at 35-32.
The second quarter provided a bit of a spark from an unlikely source in Bol Bol. He scored seven points in just even minutes including a throw down dunk after contesting a dunk at the other end.
Porzingis was a force to be reckoned with, however, and kept hitting shot after shot. He had 17 points in the first half alone. Denver responded by getting some stops after giving up 35 points in the first quarter and held Dallas to just 14 to close the second.
Jokic had a casual 13 points on 6-for-10 shooting and 10 rebounds heading into halftime to help the Nuggets build a 58-49 lead, the largest of the game.
Coming out of the locker room, Jokic picked right back up from where he left off scoring five straight points but Porzingis also kept up his rhythm from the first half and scored another 12 points in the quarter. He finished the game with 29 points on 11-for-20 shooting from field and 5-for-8 from 3-point range. The Nuggets did manage to hang onto the lead 83-79 to end the third.
To open the fourth, Dallas hit two straight 3-pointers to take an 85-83 lead forcing Denver to call an early timeout. Out of the timeout, Jamychal Green got tied up in an arm lock with Frank Ntilikina and then slammed him to the ground. Dorian Finney-Smith then got into it with Green resulting a double technical.
Whatever energy the Nuggets had seemed to be zapped by the exchange as the game started slipping away. They opened the quarter shooting 0-for-5 from the field. Dallas regained all of the momentum and was firing on all cylinders. Tim Hardaway Jr. scored 11 of his 19 points in the fourth quarter. Luka Doncic added nine of his 23 points and Jalen Brunson did work off the bench scoring 17 points.
By the time Jokic reentered the game, the deficit was too much despite his 11 points in the quarter. The Mavericks outscored the Nuggets 32-18 in the fourth quarter to seal the win.
Monte Morris finished the night with 17 points and Aaron Gordon had 14.
“I think definitely a lack of focus,” Malone said of why this game got away from his team. “You can’t allow the disappointment of missing a shot to take away from your urgency to get back and I think that happened last night at times and I think it happened tonight at times where guys are missing shots and they’re dropping their heads and they’re jogging back instead of having a next play mentality.”
The Nuggets head home for a back-to-back and face the Philadelphia 76ers on Thursday and then the Chicago Bulls on Friday.
