Nuggets 114, Rockets 108
DENVER -- Forward Will Barton scored 23 points and added nine rebounds, guard Gary Harris scored a career-high 21 points, and the Denver Nuggets held on to beat the Houston Rockets 114-108 on Monday night.
Center Joffrey Lauvergne got his second double-double of the season with 14 points and a career-high 11 rebounds for Denver, which swept the three-game season series from Houston.
The Nuggets outrebounded the Rockets 52-26 to win for the fourth time in five games.
The win spoiled Houston interim head coach J.B. Bickerstaff's return to Denver. Bickerstaff played high school basketball at Denver East high school when his father, Bernie, was an executive and head coach of the Nuggets for seven seasons.
Guard James Harden led the Rockets (12-13) with 24 and forward Donatas Motiejunas scored 19 off the bench.
The Rockets seemed out of it after a Lauvergne dunk with 4:55 left made the score 108-93 but Barton gave Houston a spark when he tossed forward Trevor Ariza's loose shoe toward the scorer's table. He was called for a delay of game and Harden's free throw started a 15-2 run that made it 110-108 with 51.8 seconds left.
Houston, which hit a season-high 18 3-pointers, had a chance for the lead but guard Jason Terry missed a corner 3-pointer with 15.9 seconds left. Barton hit two free throws to make the score 112-108.
Denver (10-14) led by as many as 16 early in the second quarter before Houston came back. Harden had 11 points in the second as the Rockets outscored the Nuggets 36-18 in the period to take a 58-54 halftime lead.
The advantage was 10 points early in the third before Denver rallied. Harris, guard Jameer Nelson and Barton hit 3-pointers during a 15-0 Nuggets run that gave them an 88-80 lead.
Denver, playing without rookie point guard Emmanuel Mudiay (right ankle sprain) and forward Darrell Arthur (right knee soreness) extended the lead back to 16 by going deep into the its bench. Forward Kostas Papanikolaou had five points in the run in his first action since Nov. 30.
NOTES: Rockets C Clint Capela was inactive. Coach J.B. Bickerstaff said he was suffering from food poisoning. ... Nuggets G Emmanuel Mudiay is day-to-day with a right ankle sprain. Mudiay is in a walking boot but the injury is not considered as serious as last year when he was limited to 10 games for Guangdong Southern Tigers of the Chinese Basketball Association. ... Bickerstaff said the he is increasing C Dwight Howard's minutes on both ends of back-to-backs. "On the front end his minutes are going to go up a little bit higher and on the back end of the back-to-backs we expect him to play even more minutes than the first game," Bickerstaff said. ... Nuggets F Darrell Arthur (right knee soreness) did not dress.