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Tuesday, Dec. 28 9:00pm ET
Rejuvenated Nuggets knock off Clips | |||||
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RECAP
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BOX SCORE
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 GAME FLOW
DENVER (AP) -- It's taken just 27 games for the Denver Nuggets to surpass their victory total from the past two seasons. Antonio McDyess had 22 points and five assists and Raef LaFrentz added 20 points and 11 rebounds as the Nuggets won their fifth consecutive home game, 128-105 over the Los Angeles Clippers, on Tuesday night. Denver (15-12) went 11-39 in last season's lockout-shortened campaign after winning just 14 games in 1997-98. "It's a whole lot better to have 15 wins now than at the end of the season," McDyess said. "The shoe used to be on the other foot for us, but we won a game that we were supposed to win." Ron Mercer had 20 points and Nick Van Exel got his fourth straight double-double with 13 points and 13 assists for the Nuggets, who are 12-3 at home. Denver's bench, led by Keon Clark's 19, outscored their Clippers counterparts 47-28 and shot a season-best 54 percent. It was Denver's highest-scoring game of the year. "We are ahead of schedule, but must make sure we protect the home court," said Denver coach Dan Issel, whose team is three games over .500 for the first time since Dec. 19, 1994 when they were 12-9. "If we can only play better on the road we will be fine." Maurice Taylor had a career-high 30 points and six rebounds for the Clippers, who saw their three-game winning streak end. The Clippers have lost four straight to the Nuggets. "They tortured us in transition the whole game," Los Angeles coach Chris Ford said. "We were able to make some baskets in the third quarter, but it was too large a deficit." Denver took a 93-86 lead into the final quarter, but George McCloud had seven points, including two 3-pointers, in a 14-6 run that gave Denver 107-94 lead. Los Angeles managed only a 3-pointer each by Eric Piatkowski and Charles Jones in the first 4:40 of the period. Taylor's layup and free throw got the Clippers as close as 112-99 with 4:22 left, only to have McDyess start a 10-0 Denver run with a reverse layup and dunk. "We didn't get back on defense," Taylor said. "There were times we looked like we didn't want to play." Trailing 64-46 at halftime, the Clippers hit six of its first 10 shots to start the third quarter, yet trailed 82-58 as Denver connected on seven of its first nine attempts. After Van Exel's 3-pointer five minutes into the period gave the Nuggets a 24-point edge, Los Angeles scored 10 in a row to close the gap to 14. Consecutive dunks by Tyrone Nesby and Keith Closs cut it to seven heading into the fourth period. Denver's bench played most of the second quarter and scored 17 of the team's 33 points to build leads as large as 20 points. Clark scored eight points, including two spectacular dunks, and a dunk by McDyess made it 61-37 before the Clipper cut it to 18 at the break. "For any of us who were around last year this is a big accomplishment for us," LaFrentz said. "We made it a point to get the 15th win early so we can move on to other goals." Game notesThe Clippers were 3-25 after 28 games last year. ... Denver had a season-high 64 points in the first half. ... Los Angeles was denied its first four-game winning streak since Feb. 23-28, 1997. ... The Nuggets won their ninth game this month to match their most successful since going 9-7 in December 1995. | ALSO SEE NBA Scoreboard LA Clippers Clubhouse Denver Clubhouse RECAPS Miami 89 Minnesota 78
Denver 128
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