Foul trouble limits Jokic as Spurs coast past Nuggets

Kawhi Leonard scored 19 points in 32 minutes, Tony Parker played a near perfect game, recording 18 points on 5-5 shooting to go with four assists, and Manu Ginobili scored 18 points off the bench in just ten minutes, as the Spurs ran away from the Nuggets in the third quarter after a close first half to win 121-97.

After an emotional win over the Bucks Friday, Denver didn’t have enough in the tank the topple the Spurs. 24 hours since his first career triple-double, foul trouble limited a tired Jokic to just nine first-half minutes. Jokic would go on to play 15 minutes total, scoring 11 points on 5-9 shooting to go with one rebound, two assists, and five turnovers.

Denver played a close first half trailing by just six at intermission, but San Antonio outscored the Nuggets 35-22 in the quarter, helped by seven Denver turnovers. The Nuggets finished with 21 turnovers on the night leading to 15 Spurs points. That opening in the third was all San Antonio needed to break open to the game and cruise to a win.

Elsewhere for Denver, rising rookie Jamal Murray scored a team-high 20 points on 8-12 shooting in 23 minutes. Murray has come on for the Nuggets as of late now that he’s getting consistent time with the second unit, much of it at point guard, a position he rarely played over the first part of the regular season.

Wilson Chandler scored ten points on just 4-11 shooting to go with five turnovers, while Jameer Nelson scored eight points in the first quarter alone, but went scoreless over the final three frames. Jusuf Nurkic, who logged 24 minutes with Jokic in foul trouble, played as well as he has of late. Nurkic score nine points and grabbed eight rebounds.

For the Spurs, Jonathon Simmons scored 18 points in 21 minutes off the bench. LaMarcus Aldridge was limited to just 12 points on 4-10 shooting.

Foul trouble, which plagued Jokic earlier this season but had subsided as of late, returned to the tune of three first-half fouls for the big man. Jokic only played nine minutes over the first two quarters after picking up his second foul with 4:48 left in the opening quarter, and his third with 5:56 to go in the second.

In his place, Nurkic, who didn’t play in the Nuggets’ win over the Bucks Friday night stepped in and played a prominent role. In 15 minutes, Nurkic scored seven points on 3-6 shooting to go with six rebounds, four of which came on the offensive glass.

Denver, behind Chandler, who scored a team-high ten points in the first half led the way as the Nuggets shot 41.7 percent from the field and went 5-13 from three. However, Denver couldn’t stop the Spurs high-octane offense, the fourth-most efficient unit in the league on that end of the floor this season.

San Antonio shot a hair under 50 percent in the quarter and were led by 18 points off the bench from Ginobili. Parker played a strong half as well, finishing with ten points on 5-5 shooting as the Spurs took a six-point lead, at 56-50 into the break. San Antonio also went 15-18 from the line.

Yet as the third quarter drifted on, it became more and more apparent that this wasn’t the Nuggets’ night. The Spurs methodically opened up a 21-point lead at the 2:47 mark of the third quarter behind Leonard and Patty Mills, who combined for 22 of San Antonio’s 32 points in the quarter. The Spurs outscored the Nuggets 35-22 as San Antonio shot 66.7 percent from the field in the quarter.

That burst was enough to carry the Spurs to victory.

Footnotes

Danilo Gallinari missed his second-straight game due to a left groin sprain. Gallinari should be back on the court sometime during the next couple of games.

What’s next

Denver returns home for a matchup against the Dallas Mavericks Monday. The Nuggets the go on a three-game Eastern Conference trip where they’ll play the Hawks, Knicks, and Cavaliers.