DENVER — The Rockets showed up for Wednesday’s game like they were ready to leave Denver on Tuesday.
And with an emphasis on protecting their home court, the Nuggets dominated from the outset. The 120-100 pummeling yielded Denver’s fourth consecutive win and second straight over the reeling Rockets.
Now 14-7 on the season, the Nuggets will head back on the road beginning with Friday’s stop in Atlanta.
Surgical in their execution, the Nuggets were relentless from the 3-point line, imposing inside and opportunistic in the passing lanes. Denver drained 17 3-pointers, including four each from Bruce Brown and Jamal Murray. Aaron Gordon rebounded from an unimpactful game against the Rockets on Monday with 20 points, and Nikola Jokic, playing conductor, orchestrated the rout.
At times during his 17-point, 12-assist, nine-rebound performance, Jokic hardly looked like he was trying. Armed with more help than he’s ever had, Jokic probably wasn’t.
After a bout with the flu, Bones Hyland was available, but never entered the game, likely due to a lack of conditioning. With 30 assists as a team, the Nuggets didn’t need his playmaking anyway.
Michael Porter Jr. missed his fourth consecutive game with a heel contusion, and Jeff Green sat for the fifth straight game due to a knee injury. But in an encouraging moment, both forwards were on the court pre-game getting shots up. The Nuggets have so much depth that neither one of their absences was felt much in the two-game set vs. Houston.
After dissecting the Rockets with his passing, Jokic took a decidedly more aggressive approach in the third quarter when the Nuggets tried to land the knockout punch. After they’d pulled within 20 a few minutes into the quarter, Jokic stepped confidently into a 3-pointer from the wing and buried it. He hit a couple more around the rim before exiting, as the possibility of a short night’s work presented itself. Denver headed to the fourth quarter with a commanding 96-75 edge.
Jokic’s teammates more than pulled their weight. Playing the sixth man role, Vlatko Cancar offered a 13-point scoring spark off the bench. His first-half jam, where he launched a step inside the free throw line, ignited the crowd. Veteran point guard Ish Smith continued his surprisingly effective defense with a couple blocks. Even at his size, his shot contests should be the envy of all his teammates.
It was a collective effort and the type of approach you’d expect of a team with legitimate championship designs.
“For us, you have to have a maturity about you,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said prior to the game. “… If we do feel that we can just show up, we’re going to win because we’re playing Houston, then we’ll get our butts kicked. That’s what I know about this league. It’s hard to win a game in the NBA.”
Perhaps with that in mind, the Nuggets throttled the Rockets in the first half, engineering a 74-47 halftime lead. Led by three 3-pointers each from Brown and Murray, Denver caught fire from behind the arc. But their 11 3-pointers only served as one element of the offense.
With four double-digit scorers, they also pounded the paint for 32 points over the first two quarters and converted eight Houston turnovers into 12 transition points.
After a quiet game Monday, Gordon was aggressive from the outset and hunted for his shot inside. He entered halftime with 15 points, and Murray paced the Nuggets with 20 overall.
The engine was, of course, Jokic, who seemed like he was doing everything in his power not to shoot the basketball. He toyed with the Rockets for 10 first-half assists and took just two shots. The highlight, though, was a blind, behind-the-back dime on a fastbreak to Brown. Jokic caught the high outlet pass and left it for Brown, who punctuated the sequence with a one-handed jam.
Acting accordingly, the Nuggets’ bench erupted in astonishment.
