The Denver Nuggets had that cold quarter that they have been famous for this season, where a decent game turns into a laugher. Once again it was the third quarter where the Jazz went on an astonishing 24-0 run to finish the period and outscored the Nuggets 34-15 en route to a 100-84 victory. Trey Lyles had a career-high 22 points replacing an injured Derrick Favors, who was a game-time scratch. Rudy Gobert put up a 16 point, 14 rebound and 5 block night and every Jazz starter was in double figures.

The Denver Nuggets talked about trying to win their last home game and they even had the lead a few minutes into the third quarter before that scoring disaster hit. Emmanuel Mudiay and Nikola Jokic both scored 19 points for Denver, but the ineffectiveness of too many players on offense (Jusuf Nurkic shooting 2-for-11, 43 combined minutes for Augustin-Toupane-Sampson with just two points total) made victory impossible even with a good defensive effort – which this was not in the second half. Mudiay and Gary Harris also sported headbands together for the first time this year. Burn those headbands fellas. Get superstitious.

The first half of this game was fun to watch, at least. Nurkic missed the first two shots of the game to start a theme early, though the Nuggets were deliberate about feeding hom on the block. He had too much respect for Gobert and was fading and rushing everything. Trey Lyles hit a 3 to cap a 10-0 Jazz run and give them 14-4 lead. Nurkic had 8 shots in 9 minutes of game time and missed them all, but Mudiay hit a three when Denver's starting frontcourt took a seat to cut it to 14-7 to stop that 10-0 run. Arthur bricked a three, but hit his next, and Mudiay threaded the needle to Arthur on a beautiful fastbreak to make it 19-12:

Balkan verdict: Incomplete.

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