{"id":517458,"date":"2026-01-05T04:35:21","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T04:35:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/517458\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T04:35:21","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T04:35:21","slug":"brooklyn-nets-blow-past-denver-nuggets-win-127-115","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/517458\/","title":{"rendered":"Brooklyn Nets blow past Denver Nuggets, win 127-115"},"content":{"rendered":"

Though Cam Johnson, dealing with a knee injury, could not make his return to Barclays Center on Sunday afternoon, the Brooklyn Nets and Denver Nuggets still had much catching up to do before the matinee contest.<\/p>\n

Bruce Brown reunited with Mr. Whammy, and Nuggets Head Coach David Adelman shared his admiration for Michael Porter Jr., both on and, yes, off the court: \u201cI miss the conversation. I think a lot of people are scared to be themselves nowadays. Mike is not. People scoff at that sometimes because maybe they\u2019re scared to say what they actually think. Mike\u2019s gonna say it, whether you agree with him or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

Likewise, Jordi Fern\u00e1ndez was full of compliments for Jamal Murray, whom he coached in both Denver and for Canada\u2019s national team. With Nikola Joki\u0107 on the shelf, the pregame talk centered on Murray, averaging 28\/5\/7 over his last ten games: \u201cI know they have some guys out, but we\u2019re gonna have to focus on the gameplan, especially \u2014 it starts with Jamal Murray, who is a very, very good player.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the very first possession of the game, the switch-heavy Nets sprung a surprise trap on Murray to force a turnover, a sign of things to come. In the first half, Murray managed just five points on five shots, and though he had eight assists, Brooklyn\u2019s defensive pressure forced him into four turnovers\u2026<\/p>\n

Day\u2019Ron Sharpe, in his second straight start, continued to impress. He jumped passing lanes, hit cutters, and finished with a robust 17\/6\/4\/3\/1 line.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe did great things on both ends,\u201d said Jordi Fern\u00e1ndez. \u201cHe was the anchor defensively today, from the beginning with those blitzes with Jamal. He was awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n

The offensive anchor, then, would have been Michael Porter Jr., who scored 16 of his 27 points in the first half. Denver attempted to apply the same level of pressure to him that Jamal Murray was facing, but found much less success. The Nets turned it over just five times the first half, and though MPJ didn\u2019t find a shot attempt for a few minutes, you knew that wouldn\u2019t last long\u2026<\/p>\n

David Adelman\u2019s comments soon proved true. Postgame, MPJ was an open book: \u201cI think I mentioned in the summertime at some point that I was excited for that first matchup against them, really, since I\u2019ve been traded and just how that whole thing kind of went down \u2026 I probably felt a little bit more nervous for this one than a lot of other games, so it was fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brooklyn took a 59-52 lead into halftime despite Ziaire Williams hitting a 65-foot chuck that was waved off\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2026but that swish kickstarted momentum. The Nets shot 8-of-15 from three in the second half, as MPJ\u2019s teammates all got in on the action.<\/p>\n

Egor Demin hit three triples to finish with 13\/4\/4, Noah Clowney went 4-of-6 from range to score 20 points, and Ziaire Williams finished with 13 points, his third straight game in double figures. The final score was inflated by some late-game fouling and pressing from Denver, but make no mistake: This offense steamrolled.<\/p>\n

Fern\u00e1ndez agreed: \u201cI think we spaced the floor well, that\u2019s good to see \u2026 It\u2019s good to have different guys scoring, because that tells you that you\u2019re hard to guard. So, great for our guys trying to make that simple play. We shot 15 corner threes, which is a lot of them, and that\u2019s a good sign.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cam Thomas showed off the full deck on Sunday. In 11 first half minutes, Denver blitzed him out of the game; he put up 0\/0\/0 with one shot attempt. Thomas, though, scored 17 after the break, shooting 5-of-9. Was he proving a point that Jordi Fern\u00e1ndez and the Nets do, in fact, need him to score?<\/p>\n

Fern\u00e1ndez didn\u2019t see it that way postgame: \u201cI thought those two halves were like \u2014 he needed to. He did the right thing for the team in the first half, passing the ball on the blitzes. He was aggressive and scored in the second. So, it\u2019s a perfect balance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though missing Nikola Joki\u0107, Cam Johnson, and backup center Jonas Valan\u010di\u016bnas, the Nuggets provided impressive individual performances. Jamal Murray would finish with an impressive, odd-looking 27\/6\/16 stat line; he didn\u2019t turn it over in the first half. Aaron Gordon and Christian Braun finally returned from medium-term injury absences. Peyton Watson scored 23 points, and Tim Hardaway Jr. added 26 off the bench. But they were never the more impressive team.<\/p>\n

The injured Nuggets were on the fifth game of a grueling seven-game road trip. Brooklyn isn\u2019t going anywhere this season. Even the rookies outside of D\u00ebmin didn\u2019t do much (Wolf, Powell and Traore combined for 12 points). And yet, Jordi Fern\u00e1ndez\u2019s followed up their tank-off in Washington with another convincing win. The Nets have a winning record since the start of December.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got a young a lot of young players that are shooting the ball well, playing well, and that comes from a coach instilling confidence, and I think Jordi and whole Nets organization does a great job instilling confidence in players.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maybe we don\u2019t have to squint too hard to see the vision. Maybe we can just look.<\/p>\n

Final Score: Brooklyn Nets 127, Denver Nuggets 115<\/p>\n

The injury report was much lighter than it was when the Brooklyn Nets took on the Washington Wizards in their last game. Wonder why!<\/p>\n

Nic Claxton missed his second straight game with personal reasons, but Jordi Fern\u00e1ndez said it won\u2019t be a long-term absence: \u201cWe expect for him to be back probably tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Day\u2019Ron Sharpe tied his season high with 17 points today against Denver to go with six rebounds, four assists, three steals and one block. It is his fourth career game with at least 15 points and four assists and his first of those with at least three steals.Michael Porter Jr. ended today\u2019s game against Denver with 27 points on a perfect 9-9 from the line, adding 11 rebounds, five assists and one block. It was his third career game with at least 25 points, 10 boards and 5 assists and second of the season. It his 20th career 25-point double-double and fourth of the season.Brooklyn has six players with at least 13 points in tonight\u2019s game (Porter Jr., Clowney, Sharpe, Thomas, D\u00ebmin, Williams), which is their most in a game this season. The previous high was five such players, accomplished three times and most recently on November 5 at Indiana.Noah Clowney has 22 points on 6-of-10 overall, 4-of-6 on threes and 6-of-7 from the stripe with six rebounds, two assists and a +18 plus\/minus. It is his fifth 20-point game of the season and ninth of his career.\"Rich<\/a><\/p>\n

Rich Storry\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

The Brooklyn Nets will stay at home and even get a practice in before they take on the Orlando Magic on Wednesday evening. Tip-off is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Though Cam Johnson, dealing with a knee injury, could not make his return to Barclays Center on Sunday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":517459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3767],"tags":[7,670,247,3803,6,671,51809],"class_list":{"0":"post-517458","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brooklyn-nets","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-brooklyn","10":"tag-brooklyn-nets","11":"tag-brooklynnets","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-nets","14":"tag-nets-scores"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115840636280796355","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}