{"id":399178,"date":"2026-01-08T06:34:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T06:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/399178\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T06:34:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T06:34:08","slug":"shorthanded-nuggets-overcome-6-plus-minute-scoring-drought-end-7-game-road-trip-with-win-over-surging-celtics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/399178\/","title":{"rendered":"Shorthanded Nuggets overcome 6-plus-minute scoring drought, end 7-game road trip with win over surging Celtics"},"content":{"rendered":"

A shorthanded Denver Nuggets squad went more than 6 1\/2 minutes without a point in the third quarter of a 114-110 road win<\/a> over the Boston Celtics on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

David Adelman’s Nuggets endured that scoring drought, which featured 11 straight missed field-goal attempts and was accompanied by a 12-0 Celtics run, and soon enough were back to swapping leads with one of the hottest teams in the NBA.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

In the fourth quarter, Denver (25-12) delivered 14 consecutive points that dug Boston (23-13) a hole it couldn’t quite climb out of. The resilient Nuggets pulled off the momentum swing with centers Nikola Joki\u0107 and Jonas Valan\u010di\u016bnas, as well as forward Cam Johnson, still sidelined<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Unsung heroes rose to the occasion, as was the case in an overtime win versus the Philadelphia 76ers on Monday. This time, standout point guard Jamal Murray picked up where he left off in Brooklyn over the weekend. He followed his 16-assist outing against the Nets with a career-high 17 assists against the Celtics, along with 22 points, 8 rebounds and only 2 turnovers.<\/p>\n

Joki\u0107 missed his fifth game in a row after suffering a hyperextended left knee<\/a> in a Dec. 29 defeat to the Miami Heat, the second game of a seven-game Nuggets road trip that finally came to an end Wednesday at TD Garden. Denver is now 3-2 in the absence of its MVP favorite.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

In each of those five contests, wing Peyton Watson has scored at least 21 points. He erupted for a team-high 30 points on 10-of-15 shooting on Wednesday in Boston. He was lights-out from the left corner and finished 6 of 7 from beyond the arc.<\/p>\n

The teams made a total of 20 3-pointers in the first half, which started with Celtics star Jaylen Brown scoring 15 points in the opening quarter. He clocked out with 33 points but also had seven turnovers.<\/p>\n

Following halftime, both sides cooled off significantly \u2014 all the way to the near-freezing temperature outside the arena \u2014 as they went a combined 5 of 23 to start the third quarter. The Celtics rediscovered their groove first, but the Nuggets eventually countered, thanks to 3-pointers from Murray, Tim Hardaway Jr. and Aaron Gordon.<\/p>\n

Boston got a boost from guard Anfernee Simons at the end of the third and start of the fourth quarters, as he chipped in 15 points off the bench. Along the way, center Neemias Queta put in serious work on the glass. He wound up with 20 rebounds, including 10 offensive boards \u2014 rebounding numbers a Celtics player hasn’t recorded since Robert Parish in 1989.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

In the final frame, the Nuggets got sizable contributions from guard Jalen Pickett and center Zeke Nnaji. Neither was averaging more than 3.8 points per game coming in. They teamed for 19 points on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Pickett paired a 3 with a layup. Nnaji blocked a Derrick White shot, leading to a Watson bucket on the break. Shortly after, he flushed home a two-handed dunk to help Denver pull away.<\/p>\n

Boston staged a late-game comeback, even pulling within three points after a trio of Payton Pritchard free throws, but it was too little, too late after a Nuggets run that turned a three-point deficit into an 11-point advantage.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Denver found a way to persevere despite its missing pieces and fatigue. In the process, the Nuggets logged their 15th road win of the season, the most of any team in the NBA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A shorthanded Denver Nuggets squad went more than 6 1\/2 minutes without a point in the third quarter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399179,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[3891,32215,64,63,1664,7187,3893,212538,1662,62056,3900,3901,15610,11473,7223,590,32203,3906,81448,3909,9688,85,4701,3911],"class_list":["post-399178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-aaron-gordon","tag-anfernee-simons","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boston-celtics","tag-brooklyn","tag-cam-johnson","tag-consecutive-points","tag-denver-nuggets","tag-derrick-white","tag-jalen-pickett","tag-jamal-murray","tag-jaylen-brown","tag-luka-doncic","tag-miami-heat","tag-nba","tag-neemias-queta","tag-nikola-jokic","tag-payton-pritchard","tag-peyton-watson","tag-philadelphia-76ers","tag-sports","tag-tim-hardaway-jr","tag-zeke-nnaji"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399178","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=399178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}