Barton, Murray lead Nuggets past Lakers
DENVER -- Will Barton and Jamal Murray scored 22 points each, Nikola Jokic had 18 points and nine rebounds, and the Denver Nuggets beat the Los Angeles Lakers 129-101 on Monday night.
Danilo Gallinari also scored 18 points and Mason Plumlee had 15 points and 10 rebounds for the Nuggets, who were without Wilson Chandler (groin), Kenneth Faried (back) and Darrell Arthur (left knee soreness) but easily won their third straight game.
The injured trio wasn't needed to beat the struggling Lakers (20-47), who have lost 10 of their last 11. Coach Luke Walton changed his starting lineup for the second straight game, inserting Jordan Clarkson as the starting point guard and bringing D'Angelo Russell off the bench.
Walton said before the game it wasn't a reflection of Russell's play, only that he wanted to see "some other looks" after losing seven of the first eight games coming out of the All-Star break.
It wasn't pretty for L.A. despite Ivica Zubac scoring a career-high 25 points and grabbing 11 rebounds. Clarkson finished with 19 points.
The Nuggets (32-35) did what they had to do to stay ahead in the race for the No. 8 seed in the Western Conference. They are two games up on Portland but have a tough upcoming schedule. They will face the L.A. Clippers, Houston (twice) and Cleveland in the next nine days.
That string of games made taking care of the Lakers that much more important, and the Nuggets did it with a big second quarter. After the Lakers got within 39-31 Denver went on a 22-2 run to lead by 28.
The Nuggets led 67-43 at halftime and increased the lead to 32 in the third quarter. The Lakers ended the third quarter on a 17-7 run to get within 93-76 but Denver scored the first 11 point of the fourth to pull away
NOTES: Nuggets coach Michael Malone said F Wilson Chandler had an MRI done on his right groin but it didn't reveal anything "too severe." He said Chandler is experiencing pain and discomfort and the hope is having the next two days off will give him a chance to play against the Clippers. ... Lakers PG Jordan Clarkson is averaging 19.2 points and 3.3 assists in nine games since the All-Star break.