Denver-Jamal Murray scored 27 points and Michael Porter Jr. rebounded with 21 clutch points, leading the Nuggets of Denver after the first seeds of Oklahoma City Thunder 113-104 in extension Friday evening for a 2-1 advance in the series of semi-final of the Western conference.
Nikola Jokic added 20 points and 16 rebounds, and Aaron Gordon collected 22 points for the Nuggets, which led by two regulatory points, but made a race of 11-2 in the additional period.
Jokic went 8 for 25 on the field and missed his 10 points at 3 points, but started to flourish with a Roll lay-up, and the nuggets have never dragged themselves again.
The other NBA MVP, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, also had a difficult night, missing 15 of the 22 shots, going 1 for 6 of Deep and ending with 18 points. Jalen Williams led OKC with 32 points and Chet Holmgren eneched 18.
Match 4 is Sunday in Denver.
It was equal to 102 after the regulation, and Gilgeous-Alexander and Jokic missed the potential winners in the last seconds of the regulations. Gilgeous-Alexander missed a 12-foot jumper with three seconds to play, and Joker missed a 19 feet in the buzzer.
After being burst of 43 points in match 2, the Nuggets knew that their way to victory over this night was near until the end, when they could draw from their mixture of experience, domestic environment and feat of fence.
The Nuggets dragged 83-80 after three quarters. They would have had their heads without calls for offensive guards consecutive in the third quarter on Gordon and Jokic.
The Thunder took an advance of 56-51 at half-time thanks to the 16 points and seven plates from Holmgren. Porter, which was combined 3-in-18 from the ground to Oklahoma City, made its first five shots, three of Deep, to keep Denver near.
Recalling last year when Jokic appeared for an eliminatory match at Ball Arena disguised as a Gru of “Despicable Me”, the Joker arrived on Thursday evening dressed as, well, the Joker, the DC comic version Villain.
