{"id":444485,"date":"2026-01-31T04:56:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T04:56:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/444485\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T04:56:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T04:56:07","slug":"nikola-jokic-returns-from-knee-injury-to-lead-denver-nuggets-past-los-angeles-clippers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/444485\/","title":{"rendered":"Nikola Jokic returns from knee injury to lead Denver Nuggets past Los Angeles Clippers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph\">DENVER (AP) \u2014 Nikola Jokic had 31 points and 12 rebounds in his first game in a month, Tim Hardaway Jr. added 22 points and the Denver Nuggets knocked off the Los Angeles Clippers 122-109 on Friday night.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Jokic, the three-time NBA MVP, missed 16 games after injuring his left knee in the first half of a Dec. 29 loss at Miami. The Nuggets went 10-6 during that stretch, which also included extended absences from starters Cameron Johnson and Christian Braun.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Jokic\u2019s 29th double-double of the season came despite being on a minutes restriction imposed by coach David Adelman. The 30-year-old Serbian was limited to 25 minutes, his second-fewest in a game this season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">James Harden had 25 points and nine assists for Los Angeles. The Clippers had won 16 of their previous 19, the best win percentage in that NBA during that period.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Jokic scored 11 points over a stretch of 3:47 in the fourth quarter that extended Denver\u2019s lead from five to 16. The Nuggets improved to 7-3 this season in the second game of a back-to-back.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Jamal Murray had 22 points, and Peyton Watson added 21 for Denver. Murray, who made four of his five 3-pointers and had a team-high nine assists, scored at least 20 points in a game for the 35th time this season, matching a career high.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Up next<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Nuggets: Host Oklahoma City on Sunday night.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Clippers: At Phoenix on Sunday night.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">___<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nba<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Craig Meyer, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DENVER (AP) \u2014 Nikola Jokic had 31 points and 12 rebounds in his first game in a month,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":444486,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-444485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}