Last night was a relatively quiet one for the National Basketball Association, with just two fixtures to report on this morning with the Denver Nuggets downing the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Utah Jazz defeating the New Orleans Pelicans.
Denver Nuggets vs Oklahoma City Thunder
Nikola Jokic was on it last night, leading his Nuggets team to a 119-101 win by posting a double-double of 27 points and 12 rebounds in just three quarters.
Paul Millsap also got in on the fun with a double-double of his own thanks to 13 points and 12 rebounds as Denver got their sixth consecutive win over their Western Conference rivals.
The Thunder was even after the first quarter thanks to an impressive start from Luguentz Dort who scored 15 points in the opening 12 minutes, but the gap really started to extend in the second and third, with Denver collectively outscoring OKC by 23 points in those 24 minutes.
Despite a late surge from the Thunder driven by the decisive Justin Jackson, who scored nine points in the final quarter with all five of his attempted field goals finding the net, they were not able to mount enough of a comeback for the score line to be even close, with the Nuggets seeing off a comfortable win by 18 points punctuated by a highlight reel coast-to-coast slam from Bol Bol.
Denver has not had the best start of the season, particularly considering they reached the Western Conference finals only to be beaten by eventual NBA Champions the Los Angeles Lakers just last year, so this game was a must-win.
With the triumph, the Nuggets find themselves with an even overall record of 7-7, but still sit outside of the play-off places in ninth in the conference in spite of Jokic’s heroic performances thus far in the season.
They will next travel to Phoenix to take on the in-form Suns on Saturday.
The loss leaves OKC trailing the Nuggets in eleventh place with a 6-7 record after a poor start to the season.
The Thunder will hope for more success as they head to the West Coast for two games at the Staples Center with Kawhi Leonard’s Los Angeles Clippers.
Utah Jazz vs New Orleans Pelicans
Despite a 32-point game from Zion Williamson, Donovan Mitchell was on fire last night for the streaking Utah Jazz, racking up 28 points to drive his team to their tenth win of the season.
Rudy Gobert also found great success last night, getting a double-double thanks to 13 points and finding fantastic success off the backboards with 18 rebounds.
The Jazz’s greatest source of success last night was from beyond the arc, finding the net 21 times from three-point range, with Joe Ingles hitting five from six.
‘Spida’ was fast out the blocks, scoring 15 of his points in the first quarter to put the Jazz up by five points, which they would later extend by another point in the second.
It was in the third quarter that the gap in the quality of the sides became evident as Utah extended their lead by another 16 points.
Despite some resistance from the Pelicans in the fourth quarter thanks to Zion’s ten points, the Jazz were able to cruise through to get a sixth consecutive win and stay in second place in the Western Conference, only trailing defending NBA champions the Los Angeles Lakers.
With such a win-streak developing, I would argue that the Utah Jazz are currently the most on-form team in all the NBA.
If the momentum continues, Quin Snyder and his team could see themselves in contention for the NBA title in the near future.
The Jazz will play next in two days time in a rematch at the Vivint Arena with the Pelicans.
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