– by Adesina O. Koiki
A Lot of Sports Talk editor-in-chief
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BOSTON — The Denver Nuggets could hardly buy a basket in the third quarter on Wednesday night. Then they could hardly miss in the fourth quarter, giving the Nuggets quite the finish in the game and on their road trip.
Jamal Murray returned to the lineup and scored 22 points with a career-high 17 assists as the Nuggets defeated the Boston Celtics 114-110 inside TD Garden. Peyton Watson led all Nuggets scorers with 30 points while three reserves — Tim Hardaway Jr., Aaron Gordon and Zeke Nnaji — all scored in double figures as Denver improved to 3-2 without Nikola Jokic, who injured his knee last month and will be out for at least another two weeks, and closed its seven-game road trip at 3-4.
The two teams played through 26 lead changes and nine ties, and most of those occurrences came before Denver went more than six minutes without scoring a point in the third quarter — Watson hit a three-pointer at the 10:34 mark to give the Nuggets a 63-60 lead, then didn’t see the ball go through the net again until a Murray three-pointer with 4:11 remaining. In the interim, Boston went on a 12-0 run and led by as much as nine points.
The decisive run ended up going the Nuggets’ way in the fourth, as they scored 14 unanswered points in racing to a 101-90 lead. Nnaji began the run with a three-point play to tie the game at 90, and scored the final five points of the spurt with a dunk and two free throws. Watson poured in nine points in the final stanza while Murray had a hand in eight of the 11 field goals Denver made (two field goals, six assists). Denver shot 57 percent (11-for-19) while holding the Celtics to 9-for-26 from the field in the fourth.
Jaylen Brown led all scorers with 33 points while also adding seven rebounds — though he did turn over the ball seven times. Derrick White and Payton Pritchard each scored 17 points while Neemias Queta grabbed a career-high 20 rebounds, 10 on the offensive glass.
*Editor’s note: Above the byline is the photo gallery from Wednesday evening’s game, with photos taken by ALOST photo editor Erica Denhoff. After clicking on a photo to enlarge the picture, press the left and right arrow buttons on either side of the caption to scroll through the rest of the pictures that appear on the first page, Also, click on the numbers and/or arrow appearing immediately below the picture grid to load the next set of photos. There are 30 pictures in total.
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