PHOENIX — Unlike the last two years, the Nuggets were not surrounded by the comforts of home this Christmas.
Extracted from the mountains and dropped in the desert, they couldn’t find any flow in a 110-100 loss to the Suns.
Bradley Beal and Kevin Durant combined for 52 points with impressive shot-making inside the arc, and Denver’s offense had an uncharacteristic dud at Footprint Center. In a grudge match after their 27-point rout Monday at Ball Arena, the Nuggets (16-12) turned it over 16 times in the final game of the NBA’s 10-hour holiday slate.
Nikola Jokic led the Nuggets with 25 points, but he was held to 10 after the first quarter.
Everything was going in for him early. The Nuggets ran their offense through Michael Porter Jr. for the first five minutes, then after Malone took his first timeout, they isolated Jokic on the right wing. He knocked down an 18-footer and gained momentum from there, scoring 15 in the last 6:46 of the frame on 6-of-7 shooting. He helped tag Jusuf Nurkic with another two early fouls. He converted an and-one after collecting one of Russell Westbrook’s best bounces passes of the year, blindly wrapping it around an unsuspecting Mason Plumlee.
The problem was that everything was going in for Phoenix, too. On Monday, the Suns’ 90 points were the fewest Denver had allowed all season. On Wednesday, their 38 by the end of the first quarter were a product of their 6-for-7 start from the 3-point line, where Denver was giving open looks.
The Suns cooled down in the second, and Denver survived Jokic’s rest minutes with a minus-two, highlighted by a pair of lobs to DeAndre Jordan and a jarring one-handed put-back jam for Julian Strawther. When Jokic rejoined, he had cooled off as well. The rim was stubborn with his right-wing 3-point attempts, where he’s been used to seeing nothing but net this season. The Nuggets didn’t have a consistent source of secondary creation. Porter was the their only other double-digit scorer at the half with 11, most of which had been piled up in the disorganized early minutes. Jamal Murray was looking to pass.
Eventually, that caught up with Denver. Attempts to force-feed Jokic resulted in bad-pass turnovers. He appeared frustrated, and he also got sloppy with the ball. The Nuggets were held to 22 points in both the second and third quarters, falling behind 85-78 as Jokic went back to the bench for a dreaded stretch.
That’s when Murray started hunting his shot more to keep Denver in it. He was able to for a couple of minutes, but rebounding breakdowns at the other end turned into multiple second-chance jumpers for Phoenix. Malone tried to get Jokic to the table just inside of the eight-minute mark, but the officials didn’t let him check in as the Suns inbounded. The next possession: An offensive rebound, a 3-pointer and a timeout, down 11.
Shortly after powering his way to a layup during the third quarter, Aaron Gordon went into the huddle for a timeout shaking his head. He went to the end of the bench and had a word with team trainers, then didn’t end up returning due to calf tightness. Gordon missed a 10-game stretch earlier this season with a calf strain.