moving ahead of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for the most made field goals in NBA history<\/a>, but was dealing with a left elbow injury late in the game after taking a fall on a layup attempt in the fourth.\u00a0<\/p>\nJaxson Hayes stepped up after starting center Deandre Ayton left the game with left knee soreness, with Hayes finishing with 19 points on 8-of-10 shooting and five rebounds in 28 minutes.<\/p>\n
The Nuggets jumped out to a 15-2 lead with the Lakers lacking energy early. <\/p>\n
They outscored the Nuggets 110-106 over the final 43 \u00bd\u00a0minutes after Ayton subbed out with the knee injury. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe talked about the sense of urgency, the importance of this game pregame, we talked about our physicality, took us a little bit of time to do that,\u201d coach JJ Redick said. \u201cIt\u2019s difficult against good teams to spot them\u202613 points. Our group showed a lot of resiliency, did some really good things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Three-time MVP Nikola Jokic led the Nuggets with 28 points, 13 assists and 12 rebounds. Jamal Murray added 28 points and seven assists.<\/p>\n
LeBron James goes up for a layup against the Nuggets. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n
What it means<\/p>\n
The Lakers will stay at the No. 6 spot in the West, moving further behind the No. 5 Nuggets (39-24).<\/p>\n
They dropped to 37-25 on the season.<\/p>\n
Turning point<\/p>\n
When Reaves split a pair of free throws with 2:05 remaining.<\/p>\n
The Lakers would\u2019ve tied the game at 112 apiece if Reaves made both, but they trailed 112-111 after he missed the second attempt, with Jokic making a driving hook shot on the Nuggets\u2019 ensuing possession to start a 6-0 run.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Nikola Jokic drives to the basket against the Lakers. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n
MVP: Nikola Jokic<\/p>\n
Even on a night he didn\u2019t play the best, Jokic still had a triple-double and shot 10 of 15 from the field.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Stat of the game: 15<\/p>\n
That\u2019s how many technical fouls Doncic has been assessed this season after picking up another technical in the second quarter on Thursday.<\/p>\n
After going almost 1 \u00bd months across 14 games without a technical foul, Doncic picked up his 14th during Tuesday\u2019s home win over the Pelicans.<\/p>\n
Luka Doncic received another technical foul, raising his season total to 15. AP<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s aware that he\u2019s close,\u201d coach JJ Redick said ahead of Thursday\u2019s game. \u201cAnd I think he\u2019s\u2026 He\u2019s trying.\u201d<\/p>\n
If Doncic is assessed another technical for his 16th of the season, he\u2019ll have to serve a one-game suspension by league rule.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Up next<\/p>\n
The Lakers will close out the back-to-back set when they return to Southern California on Friday.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ll host the Pacers at Crypto.com Arena to kick off a five-game homestand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DENVER \u2014 Even with both teams eventually down multiple key players, Thursday night at Ball Arena was the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":642902,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3781],"tags":[7,160,301,187,3943,762,185,150,368,6,253,302,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-642901","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-denver-nuggets","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-denver","11":"tag-denver-nuggets","12":"tag-denvernuggets","13":"tag-jamal-murray","14":"tag-lebron-james","15":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","16":"tag-luka-doncic","17":"tag-nba","18":"tag-nikola-jokic","19":"tag-nuggets","20":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116181660387433305","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642901","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=642901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/642902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=642901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=642901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=642901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}