The Denver Nuggets finished up a tough slate of games and now start a season-high seven-game road trip when they face the Orlando Magic on Saturday night.
Denver played the Houston Rockets twice, went on the road against the Dallas Mavericks and won a thriller over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Thursday night to wrap up a six-game stretch over 11 days. The Nuggets won four of those six contests.
The Nuggets won’t have three starters for Saturday night after Cameron Johnson went down with a hyperextended right knee in a loss at Dallas on Tuesday.
Johnson joins Aaron Gordon (hamstring) and Christian Braun (ankle) on the sideline, but the team’s depth is paying off. Tim Hardaway Jr. moved into the starting lineup against the Timberwolves, and Peyton Watson and Spencer Jones continue to fill in for Gordon and Braun.
“We’ll just reinvent ourselves as we go here,” Denver coach David Adelman said. “I’m looking at this as just another chapter in the season. It’s what it is.”
Denver has kept winning — eight of the past 10 — and has thrived on the road. The loss to the Mavericks snapped the Nuggets’ 11-game road winning streak.
A big reason is the play of Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray. Jokic had 56 points, 16 rebounds and 15 assists against Minnesota, making him the first player in NBA history to have a 55-15-15 triple-double. He is leading the NBA in rebounds (12.1 per game) and assists (11.0) and is fifth in scoring (29.8).
“We can’t just continue to dismiss what this guy does on a night-to-night basis,” Watson said. “Bro, it’s unbelievable. There’s no way that we can take for granted or it should go over people’s heads what Jok did (Thursday). And every night honestly.”
Murray is averaging career highs in points (25.4 ppg) and assists (7.0 per game).
Orlando is also dealing with significant injuries and is playing the second game of a back-to-back. Jalen Suggs (hip) has not played since Dec. 13, and Franz Wagner (ankle) missed his seventh straight game on Friday as the Magic fell 120-105 to the visiting Charlotte Hornets.
Wagner, the team’s leading scorer at 22.7 points over 24 games, is starting to increase his activity while working his way back to action.
“He’s just able to do spot shooting right now,” Orlando coach Jamahl Mosley said Friday. “Not a lot of pressure on the foot, but being able to walk around again is very important for us.”
The Magic sit sixth in the Eastern Conference after losing six of their past 10.
Paolo Banchero, who is second for Orlando in scoring at 20.1 points a game and leads in rebounding (8.3), and Desmond Bane, third on the team at 19.1 points per game, both had rough shooting nights on Friday. Banchero hit 4 of 13 from the floor and scored 13 points while Bane went 7 of 19 en route to 15 points.
Bane and Banchero combined to finish 0-for-8 from 3-point range.
The teams met Dec. 18 in Denver, a 126-115 win for the Nuggets. Jokic set the all-time assists record for centers in the win and had one of his 15 triple-doubles this season.
Jokic has 179 career regular-season triple-doubles, two behind Oscar Robertson for the second-best total in NBA history. Russell Westbrook is the all-time leader with 207.
