With Tyrese Haliburton out, Denver Nuggets defeated the Indiana Pacers

The teams faced each other only 9 days ago. But, after the Indiana Pacers shook the market with Pascal Siakam arrival, this match wasn´t going to be the same. Tyrese Haliburton was out for the game, and the Denver Nuggets took advantage of this. Jokic and Murray played sensational and ended up with a road win 114-109.

The Denver Nuggets are the reigning NBA champions and it notices. The team coached by Michael Malone seems to win games with relative ease at times, as they can beat their opponents when they decide to do so.

Nikola Jokic continues playing phenomenally, making his incredible numbers look “usual”. Jamal Murray came up big this game, as he finished with 31 points, 8 rebounds and 7 assists. Murray is having an awesome January, averaging 24 points with almost 50% from the field.

The Pacers started better. They brought the effort, playing good defense and executing on offense, making sure everyone was involved. Indiana went to half time up by 8 points.

But in the third, the Nuggets came up on firing. Caldwell-Pope was fantastic, scoring from everywhere. Denver won the period 39-19 and headed up to the fourth winning by 12.

Indiana didn’t back down. They adjusted their defense and shot the ball with high efficiency, what allowed them to tie the game. They even were ahead by 1 point with 4 minutes left.

But then there’s Jokic, the serbian was huge on the last stretch of the game, knocking down two major three pointers, one of them with less than 10 seconds left. This gave Denver a 4 point margin that was enough to put down Indiana’s aspirations. The Joker finished with another triple-double: 31 points, 13 rebounds and 10 assists.

6 Pacers ended up with double digits. Miles turner was the lead scorer with 22 points, followed by TJ McConnell with 17. Siakam ended with 16 points and 10 rebounds.

Pascal is going to need some time to adapt to his new team, and will benefit a lot from having Haliburton back when he recovers.