{"id":357779,"date":"2025-12-19T07:06:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T07:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/357779\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T07:06:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T07:06:08","slug":"nuggets-jokic-breaks-kareems-record-for-career-assists-by-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/357779\/","title":{"rendered":"Nuggets’ Jokic breaks Kareem’s record for career assists by center"},"content":{"rendered":"

DENVER — Nikola Jokic<\/a> had 23 points, 13 assists and 11 rebounds to become the career assists leader among centers, and the streaking Denver Nuggets<\/a> beat the Orlando Magic<\/a> 126-115 on Thursday night.<\/p>\n

Jokic, who has 13 triple-doubles this season, entered Thursday six assists behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who had 5,660. Jokic passed him with 6:26 left in the first half when he fed Jalen Pickett<\/a> for a 3-pointer.<\/p>\n

Jamal Murray<\/a> scored 20 of his 32 points in a game-turning second quarter for Denver, which won its sixth straight.<\/p>\n

Paolo Banchero<\/a> had 26 points, 16 rebounds and 10 assists for his third career triple-double and first since March 20, 2024.<\/p>\n

Editor’s Picks<\/a><\/p>\n

The Magic, already missing leading scorer Franz Wagner<\/a> because of a sprained left ankle, played without Jalen Suggs<\/a>, who sustained a left hip contusion in the NBA Cup semifinal loss to New York on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

Wendell Carter Jr<\/a>. also scored 26 points for Orlando.<\/p>\n

Murray, who has never been named to an All-Star team in his eight seasons, is averaging a career-best 25.2 points this season and 28.1 in December, which includes a 52-point game at Indiana two weeks ago.<\/p>\n

He made 5 of 6 3-point attempts in the second quarter after the Nuggets fell behind by 14.<\/p>\n

Denver had 33 total points midway through the period and went on a 35-7 run in the final 6:26 of the half to turn a 47-33 deficit into a 68-54 halftime lead.<\/p>\n

It was 81-60 a few minutes into the third quarter before Orlando rallied to cut it to 92-83. Cam Johnson, who finished with 14 points and 11 rebounds, hit a 3-pointer out of a timeout that spurred another Nuggets surge.<\/p>\n

The Magic got within 121-115 with 1:32 remaining, but Johnson hit a corner 3-pointer to seal it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DENVER — Nikola Jokic had 23 points, 13 assists and 11 rebounds to become the career assists leader…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357780,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-357779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357779","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=357779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}