Milwaukee Jan. 31 (BUS): Nikola Jokic scored 18 points, 15 assists and nine rebounds to help the Denver Nuggets defeat the Milwaukee Bucks 136-100 on Sunday night.
The NBA Most Valuable Player has missed his 13th hat-trick this season. He reached the highest level of his season for assists.
“He loves to win,” Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer said of Jokic. “He will do whatever it takes to win. Credit to him.”
Aaron Gordon scored 24 points, Monty Morris 18 and Will Barton 15 with the Nuggets. They improved to 4-0 in a six-game run and agreed to the longest winning streak of the season. Denver has won six of its last seven and 13 of its 19 road games against Milwaukee.
“We had a lot of guys shooting really well tonight,” said Nuggets coach Michael Malone. “This is really a good win for us.”
The Nuggets have had 39 assists per season, four more than they made against the Los Angeles Lakers on Jan. 15, the Associated Press reported.
Milwaukee star Giannis Antikonmo scored 22 out of 29 points in the first half. He was the best player in successive seasons before Jokic took the honors last season.
Junior Holiday scored 14 points, and Bobby Portes, who guarded Jokic throughout the competition, added 11 for the Bucks. Grayson Allen finished with 11 points in his second start since serving a one-game suspension for his 2 blatant foul on Chicago Bulls’ Alex Caruso that resulted in a fracture of his right wrist.
“Anytime you can win all the fourth quarters, it means the rookies are playing really well and the bench is playing really well,” Malone said.
Denver took over in the third quarter. The Nuggets advanced 118-93 when the Bucks called out with 5:55 left to play and clear the bench.
“They were better than us tonight,” Budenholzer said.
Jokic passed to Barton, who flipped an unlucky pass to Gordon for an unchallenged Dunk capped a 12-5 lead and gave Denver a 77-62 lead with 8:27 left in the third quarter. The Bucks immediately called a timeout to find out how to stop the Nuggets. They never did.
“He (Djokic) was sitting there separating us,” Holiday said. “We didn’t give ourselves a chance to win.”
The Milwaukee defeated the Nuggets 120-109 in Denver on November 26.
INS tip:
Nuggets: Barton is back in the starting line-up after missing two games due to a non-coronavirus illness. …DeMarcus Cousins (a sprain of the right foot) is disqualified. Cousins appeared in 17 games for the Bucks under an unsecured contract, but was waived on January 6. The Nuggets signed him to a 10-day contract on January 21.
Bucks: George Hill (neck ache) was out.
next one
Nuggets: In Minnesota on Tuesday night.
Bucks: Washington hosts Tuesday night.