{"id":157741,"date":"2026-01-31T06:29:26","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T06:29:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/157741\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T06:29:26","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T06:29:26","slug":"nikola-jokic-dominates-in-his-return-as-nuggets-beat-clippers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/157741\/","title":{"rendered":"Nikola Jokic dominates in his return as Nuggets beat Clippers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

DENVER\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Nikola Jokic<\/a> had 31 points and 12 rebounds in his first game in a month, Tim Hardaway Jr<\/a>. added 22 points, and the Denver Nuggets knocked off the Clippers<\/a> 122-109<\/a> on Friday night.<\/p>\n

Jokic, the three-time NBA MVP, missed 16 games after injuring his left knee in a Dec. 29 loss at Miami. The Nuggets went 10-6 during that stretch, which also included extended absences from fellow starters Cameron Johnson and Christian Braun.<\/p>\n

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 this season.<\/p>\n

James Harden<\/a> had 25 points and nine assists for the Clippers (22-25), who had won 16 of their previous 19, the best win percentage in that NBA during that period.<\/p>\n

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 (33-16) improved to 7-3 in the second of back-to-back games.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

Jamal Murray had 22 points, and Peyton Watson added 21 for Denver. Murray, who made four of five three-pointers and had a team-high nine assists, scored at least 20 points for the 35th time this season, matching a career high.<\/p>\n

Up next for the Clippers: at Phoenix on Sunday night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DENVER\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Nikola Jokic had 31 points and 12 rebounds in his first game in a month, Tim Hardaway Jr.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":157742,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[6265,15998,6665,715,10450,1952,48,52,51,47,50,49,3289,1540,59142,1954,32731,1417,2699,278,55234],"class_list":["post-157741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-assist","tag-clipper","tag-clippers","tag-denver-nuggets","tag-first-game","tag-jamal-murray","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-loss","tag-miami","tag-minute-restriction","tag-nikola-jokic","tag-nugget","tag-point","tag-return","tag-season","tag-stretch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157741\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}