Philadelphia 76ers 111 vs 116 Denver Nuggets summary: stats and highlights | NBA

The Denver Nuggets continued to display their dominance over the best teams in the league with a narrow win from Ball Arena on Monday night. Nikola Jokic paced the Western Confence leaders with another triple-double in the 116-111 victory.

No Joel or James for Philly

After taking down Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Eastern Conference leading Milwaukee Bucks in their previous game over the weekend, they hosted the Sixers who came in as the three seed in the East. Philadelphia would come to town, but is was a short handed Sixers side that were without MVP candidate Joel Embiid who was ruled out after an early morning workout before the game and James Harden was out with a lingering Achilles injury.

The Nuggets started with a bang, as the Philly offense struggled to find their rhythm without Embiid or Harden. Doc Rivers’ side would score just 18 points in the first quarter as the Nuggets extended the lead to double digits with an early 14-3 run.

Finally Philly found their groove on the offensive end after a dreadful start, thanks to Tyrese Maxey and his 20 point second quarter. The Sixers clawed back into the game after going down by double digits, but never took the lead from the Nuggets after leading 5-4 in the early going.

James Niang cut the lead to four with a three pointer right before the half, but Denver came out of the break guns blazing, while Philly had a stagnant start to the second half. Maxey went cold after his huge second quarter and the visitors scored just four points in the opening seven minutes of the half. In that time the Nuggets went on a 22-4 run to retake command of the game.

It seemed like the home team was going to cruise to victory as Aaron Gordon, Bruce Brown and Christian Braun dazzled the Denver crown with a dizzying array of high flying dunks, and Jokic produced his 29th triple-double of the season with 25, 17 and 12 assists.

Doc Rivers even sat Tyrese Maxey and some of his other starters as the lead built up to 20 in the fourth quarter, but the second team brought Philly back to life and almost tied the game back up after a 20-4 run closed the game to three points with 28.2 seconds left.

The Sixers could have had a chance to tie the game up after Jeff Green stepped on the baseline before getting fouled with 13.1 seconds left, but the refs didn’t see it and the play couldn’t be challenged Green hit both FTs to seal the game and send Philly back home on a three game losing streak.