(Photo credit: Christopher Creveling-USA TODAY Sports)
The reigning champion Denver Nuggets enter the season’s final week in pursuit of the Western Conference’s No. 1 seed, beginning a stretch of three road games in their final four dates with a visit to the Utah Jazz in Salt Lake City on Tuesday.
The three road games for Denver (54-24) are against teams eliminated from the postseason. The Nuggets’ lone remaining home game is Wednesday against Minnesota, which is also battling for the No. 1 seed.
The Nuggets overtook the Timberwolves on Saturday, capitalizing on Minnesota’s 97-87 loss to Phoenix on Friday, with a 142-110 rout of Atlanta. The Timberwolves bounced back with a 127-117 win over the Los Angeles Lakers on Sunday, and now have the same record as Denver ahead of Tuesday’s slate.
Minnesota hosts Washington on Tuesday.
Jamal Murray scored 16 points playing 20:51 in his return from a seven-game absence due to a knee injury for the Nuggets on Saturday. Murray, whose 20.8 points per game are second on the team to Most Valuable Player contender Nikola Jokic’s 26.4, said following the win he is “on a minutes restriction.”
“It used to be the (regular) season ended on a Wednesday night, and you were playing (in the playoffs) on Saturday night,” Denver coach Michael Malone said. “The way it is now, you get a week off. And that’s why I think it’s important for Jamal to play and find a rhythm.”
Denver was without Aaron Gordon against Atlanta, but Malone said having Murray in the starting lineup allowed Reggie Jackson to return to a reserve role that made for “more of a natural order to things for us.”
Jackson responded to his return to the bench after starting the previous seven games with 18 points, five rebounds and three assists on Saturday.
Utah (29-49) comes into Tuesday’s matchup riding a 12-game losing streak, the third-longest in franchise history. The 1979-80 Jazz dropped 14 straight, and the 1981-82 team lost 18 in a row.
Utah played at Golden State on Sunday without leading scorer Lauri Markkanen (shoulder impingement) for a fifth consecutive game, Jordan Clarkson (back inflammation) for a sixth game, leading rebounder John Collins (back spasms) for a fourth straight game, and Walker Kessler (broken nose) for a second straight game.
Johnny Juzang scored a career-high 27 points off the bench, but the Jazz could not overcome a first-half onslaught in their 118-110 loss to the Warriors.
Jazz coach Will Hardy attributed the team’s struggles to slow starts. Utah trailed 41-28 after one quarter Saturday.
“We’re putting ourselves in a hole and it creates an atmosphere where you have to be perfect for the remainder of the game to have a chance,” Hardy told the Deseret News. “It’s tough to play that way. It makes the game feel awkward because every mistake feels worse than it is.”
Juzang heads into Tuesday’s contest having logged more than 31 minutes in each of the last two games. Rookie Keyonte George scored 25 points against the Warriors for his first game with 25-plus since posting three straight from March 9-15.
–Field Level Media
