Nikola Jokic scoring 50 or more points had never been enough for the Denver Nuggets to win. Until now.<\/p>\n
Jokic tied the highest-scoring performance in the NBA this season with 55 points, and the Nuggets beat the Los Angeles Clippers 130-116 on Wednesday night for their sixth straight victory.<\/p>\n
The Nuggets were 0-4 in his previous 50-point outbursts.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a good feeling,\u201d the three-time NBA MVP said.<\/p>\n
He equaled Oklahoma City star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who had 55 in a double-overtime game at Indiana on Oct. 23.<\/p>\n
Jokic has been on a roll during Denver\u2019s winning streak. He\u2019s the first player in NBA history to average a 35-point triple-double while shooting 60% or better across a six-game stretch.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s averaging 35.8 points, 12.0 rebounds and 11.0 assists while shooting 73.9% from the field and 55.6% from 3-point range.<\/p>\n
Opposing defenses have thrown everything at him in a fruitless effort to slow down the 7-foot Serbian.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I saw everything,\u201d he said, \u201cbut I think it\u2019s hard. We are really running a lot of plays for me, all kind of different plays.\u201d<\/p>\n
Playing on the second night of a back-to-back, Jokic scored 25 of Denver\u2019s 39 points in the first quarter.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t open the game really good,\u201d he said. \u201cI think I missed like two, three layups, and after that I felt good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last season, Jokic played well on the back end of consecutive games, too. His routine on 24 hours\u2019 rest includes a daytime nap in between eating things like avocado, eggs, oatmeal and toast.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way he played today is how he works out when no one is watching,\u201d coach David Adelman said. \u201cHe prepares every day for situations like this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jokic had eight points in the second quarter before coming back with 19 in the third, including two personal runs of six straight points.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe guys, especially in the fourth quarter, they\u2019re giving me the ball,\u201d he said. \u201cI just keep shooting it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jokic sat out the fourth until coming back with about six minutes remaining. He scored three points to complete his night going 18 for 23 from the field. He missed adding to his league-leading six triple-doubles with six assists. He was 5 of 6 on 3-pointers and made 14 of 16 free throws.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was extraordinary,\u201d Adelson said. \u201cThat\u2019s one of those performances you won\u2019t forget.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Nuggets led by 16 points going into the fourth and extended their advantage to 22 points early on.<\/p>\n
Adelman said there was \u201czero disrespect\u201d to the Clippers in deciding to put Jokic back in.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey started to press us and he\u2019s one of our best ballhandlers, he\u2019s a guy that can bleed the clock, he\u2019s one of the best players alive,\u201d the coach said. \u201cIt would be stupid for me not to put my best players back in to make sure we win the game.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nikola Jokic scoring 50 or more points had never been enough for the Denver Nuggets to win. Until…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":281732,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-281731","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}