Denver Nuggets Battle Utah Jazz at Home
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The Denver Nuggets took on the Utah Jazz, in Denver, for only their 15th home game of the season and unfortunately fell to their division opponents 115-109. The Nuggets have played a surprisingly small number of games at home sitting with a record of 18-18, only 41% of their games have been played in Ball Arena, in front of the Nuggets faithful. On a night when they returned some key players to the rotation in Monte Morris, on a minutes restriction, and Aaron Gordon, coming of an ailing hamstring, the Nuggets were competitive with the NBA Western Conferences number three seed, but could not pull out the victory.
Nikola Jokic had a monster night with a triple-double line of 26 points, 21 rebounds, 11 assists and 2 big blocks. Monte Morris played five minutes more than his supposed 24-minute restriction, and contributed heavily. Morris shot the ball well, and more impressively shot the three ball at a high percentage to score 20-points. Will Barton didn’t shoot the ball at a particularly high percentage, but made timely shots on his way to a 20 point evening. Aaron Gordon started the game 8/8 from the field and was incredibly opportunistic and efficient, but missed some late game shots to try and claw their way back into the game. He finished the game 8/11 for 17 points, and added a few highlight reel drives in the first half.
At the end of the game, with 20 seconds remaining, down only four points, the Nuggets sprinted the floor and for no reason, that was seemingly frustrating to the rest of the players on the floor, Monte Morris jacked up a highly contested three point shot very early in the shot-clock, which ultimately fell short and ended the comeback bid as the Nuggets were down by as much as 14 in the fourth quarter.
Bojan Bogdanovich scored a season high 36 points and added an additional season high 13 rebounds, on an incredibly efficient 60% shooting percentage. Bogdanovich shot nearly as many free throws as the entire Nuggets team going 11/13 from the charity stripe, the Nuggets would only shoot 15 free-throws total. The Nuggets acting head coach Popeye Jones will fall to 1-2 as a head coach, as Michael Malone is still out with Covid.
Additional Notes:
- Jamal Murray was in attendance tonight, and he seemed to be in good spirits. He was mic’ed up on the side lines chatting with his teammates and fans. Said that he’s feeling good, but working on feeling like he was never injured.
- Bol Bol got four minutes of playing time where he scored one nice floater but also threw an errant pass and had multiple shots scored over his outstretched arms.
- Nobody outside of the four players mentioned in the bulk of the article scored more than eight points, and the bench, quite frankly, had a terrible shooting night outside of Monte Morris who didn’t start, but finished the game.
- Bones Hyland didn’t have a particularly memorable night shooting 1/6 from the field, four rebounds, and a single assist.
- Jeff Green and Zeke Nnaji are both still out because of Covid.
- Vlatko Cancar is just another name that is added to the Nuggets almost comical list of injured players, with a foot injury that should keep him out for another couple of months.
- DNVRs Adam Mares had a funny Tweet about the nationally televised game, which is a rarity for Denver Nuggets games.
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