DENVER (AP) β Shai Gilgeous-Alexander banked in a decisive 8-foot jumper with 9.2 seconds remaining and finished with 34 points as the Oklahoma City Thunder snapped Denverβs league-leading nine-game win streak and beat the Nuggets 101-99 Sunday night.
After Denverβs Zeke Nnaji hit two free throws to tie the game at 99 with 30 seconds left, Gilgeous-Alexander got the ball out of a timeout and hit the mid-range jumper to give the Thunder the lead. The Nuggetsβ Jamal Murray missed a fadeaway 14-foot shot in the final seconds.
βHeβs got some poise in those situations,β Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault said of Gilgeous-Alexander. βThe game slows down for him. Heβs got great confidence and heβs always at his pace, even in the most pressure situations.β
Oklahoma Cityβs victory ended the Nuggetsβ 16-game home win streak β the franchiseβs longest run in 10 years.
Josh Giddey had 18 points and a team-high nine rebounds for the Thunder, who earned their seventh win in nine games.
Denver center Nikola Jokic missed his second straight game while dealing with tightness in his left hamstring. The two-time reigning NBA MVP had recorded a triple-double in five of his last six games. Nuggets acting head coach David Adelman said expects that Jokicβs return is βgoing to be very soon.β
βI think itβs much easier to switch one through five with us,β Adelman said. βWhen Nikola is on the floor, itβs virtually impossible to do that and itβs virtually impossible to zone us. They did those two things and theyβre smart things to do.β
Forward Michael Porter Jr. also missed the game for βpersonal reasons,β leaving Denver without two of its top four scorers. Porterβs younger brother, Coban, a sophomore guard at the University of Denver, was arrested Sunday on suspicion of vehicular homicide and reckless driving after he was involved in a fatal crash.
Without Jokic and Porter, Murray shouldered much of the offensive load, finishing with a team-high 26 points and nine assists, two nights recording his first career triple-double.
βThey doubled me,β Murray said. βWe kind of expected that. We knew from what we went through in walk-throughs what theyβd most likely do. We prepared for it. We got what we wanted. We didnβt finish like youβre accustomed to seeing us finish. Thatβs just on us. That hurts, knowing we did everything we could and we didnβt get over the hump.β
Denver made 51.5% of its free throws, losing out on…
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