Medical gold hardly helped the Denver Nuggets against the New York Knicks on Friday night.
Facing the tip of the annual mid-March road trip brought about by the Big East Men’s Basketball Tournament back home, the Knicks dominated Denver on its home floor, rolling to a 142-103 victory at Ball Arena.
A 34-point avalanche from the hands of OG Anunoby, who outpaced the Nuggets’ three-point output on his own before each side pulled its main men from the one-sided affair. Anunoby also had four steals, matching his second-half three-point haul in as many attempts.
With the win, the Knicks (41-23) secured not only their fourth straight non-losing season but a sweep of their annual interconference couple against the Nuggets for the second straight season (and third in the last four tours).
The Knicks also registered their seventh road victory of at least 20 points this season, tying a franchise mark set during their first championship run in 1969-70.
Denver’s night began with a bit of a celebratory tone: the Nuggets were coming off a win over the Los Angeles Lakers and inched closer to full strength with the return of Aaron Gordon after a 17-game absence.
The pregame momentum, and perhaps a metropolitan adjustment to the infamous altitude, allowed Denver to score 11 of the first 13 points while Karl-Anthony Towns landed in early foul trouble. Mike Brown, in fact, called a timeout less than two minutes into the contest to get his team back on track.
Despite Towns’ absence, the Knicks still had their interior fill in the form of Mitchell Robinson, who broke loose for nine points on a 4-of-5 output in the opening frame.
Two triples from fellow reserve Landry Shamet allowed the Knicks to keep further pace, and the final 13-6 over the last three minutes (cutting the once-sizable Denver lead to two by the close) appropriately featured two Robinson alley-oop tallies and a buzzer-beater from the tenured big man. A closer Shamet drive tied the game with 9:27 to go in the second, and Anunoby’s free throws created what became a permanent lead.
While franchise face Nikola Jokic had interior penetration covered, his 38 points were mostly earned through rare slips into the paint, as the Knicks held the NBA’s most accurate three-point shooting team to only three sinks on 26 tries through three periods.
The entries of Jokic did little to affect Denver’s style points in the physical game: Towns’ re-entry (on his way to a 17-point, 13-rebound night) continued the tone that Robinson set as his work helped the Knicks get into the bonus before the midway part of the second en route to a plus-19 advantage on the boards.
Adding to the impressiveness of the sizable scoring margin was the fact that it was earned with Jalen Brunson lacking his normal shooting prowess (3-of-13 for nine points), though he dished out 15 assists.
That allowed New York to built a 13-point lead by the halftime horn and once it became clear that Jokic (1-of-7 from three) did not have his usual outside prowess, New York clogged up the other holes and essentially broke Denver’s will with an Anunoby highlight reel that featured a reverse dunk at the end of the third and a series of triples that emptied each bench.
Even garbage time provided no shelter from the New York storm, the Knicks won the final period 37-23. Every Manhattanite who took the floor put an entry onto the scoresheet, including Pacome Dadiet and his career-best 11 earned on a perfect 3-of-3 out from three-point range.
Despite somewhat enjoying a 38-point effort from Jokic, Denver (39-25) wound up enduring injury to insult, as Jamal Murray was forced to leave the game with an apparent ankle injury while contesting an Anunoby drive late in the second period. In a sign of just how poorly Denver’s evening went, Murray was charged with a blocking foul upon review of the call.
The Knicks now head further west for a SoCal couple, as they’ll face the aforementioned Lakers on Sunday afternoon (3:30 p.m. ET, ABC) and their red counterparts in Inglewood shortly after.
