The Denver Nuggets came into the Target Center on Wednesday down three starters and coming off a 95-77 victory the night before at home against Portland. Despite the odds seeming to stack up against them, the Nuggets, led by Chauncey Billups, pulled out a 119-113 victory against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
With Carmelo Anthony missing his fifth consecutive game following the death of his sister as well as Nene, Kenyon Martin, and Al Harrington sitting out due to injury, the scoring load fell on the shoulders of Billups. He answered the call brilliantly, saving his best effort for the fourth quarter, where he scored 15 of his 36 points.
"This was one of our better wins of the year," Nuggets' head coach George Karl said in a postgame press conference. "Chauncey was fantastic, but everybody had their moments."
Coming off the bench, Ty Lawson also chipped with 19 points. Chris Andersen filled the void of both Nene and Martin, scoring 11 points and grabbing seven rebounds.
Billups agreed with his head coach about the value of the victory.
"Relatively speaking, this is one of our best wins of the year, playing so short-handed, coming in on a back-to-back, getting in late. It was just a really good win."
The Nuggets improve their record to 18-13 and sit just three and a half games behind both Utah and Oklahoma City for the Northwest Division lead.
Good story.
ReplyDeleteI am glad to hear that our Colorado teams are picking things up. I think it is important for blogs like this to exist because it helps encourage the support of our home teams. I also thought it was inspiring to know that the Nuggets won this game without some of their star players, showing that there are many great players that we don't have many opportunities to see.
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