Dallas Mavericks beat Denver Nuggets minus Luka Doncic in NBA Cup

The Denver Nuggets dropped their NBA Cup game against the Dallas Mavericks 123-120 on Friday night.

Nikola Jokic made his return after missing three games due to the birth of his son. It looked like Jokic barely missed a beat with 33 points, 17 rebounds, and 10 assists in just over 39 minutes. He was tremendous for most of the night and forced the Mavericks to commit heavily to the paint to stop him.

Unfortunately for Denver, they had to fight all the way back just to make this a game.

Denver’s scoring process in the fourth quarter bogged down as the Mavericks collapsed on Jokic. Jamal Murray struggled with his consistency throughout the game and was also thrown the ball late in possessions with few options.

Russell Westbrook closed the game over Christian Braun after making four three-pointers and playing some solid defense on the other end.

Unfortunately, Westbrook had two shots blocked at the rim in the final five minutes and didn’t impact those clutch minutes otherwise.

“We gotta find a way, and I have to find a way, to get Jamal going,” Michael Malone declared postgame.

The Nuggets starting point guard scored 14 points tonight on 4-of-16 from the field, saved by a high volume of threes tonight, shooting 4-of-11. Murray did log 11 assists and three blocks tonight, so it was a reasonable outing from a production standpoint…except it wasn’t. The Nuggets are in the midst of a 1-3 stretch. The first three of those games were without Jokic.