NEW YORK (AP) — Michael Porter Jr. had 27 points, 11 rebounds and five assists in his first game against his former team, and the Brooklyn Nets beat the Denver Nuggets 127-115 on Sunday to snap a three-game losing streak.
The Nuggets got Aaron Gordon and Christian Braun back from lengthy injury absences and a huge game from Jamal Murray, but fell to 1-2 since Nikola Jokic was lost for perhaps a month with a hyperextended left knee.
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Murray finished with 27 points, a career-high 16 assists and six rebounds. Gordon had 20 points off the bench after missing 19 games with a strained right hamstring, while Braun started and scored four points after he sat out 23 games with a sprained left ankle.
Noah Clowney added 22 points for the Nets, while Cam Thomas and Day’Ron Sharpe each had 17. Sharpe started at center with Nic Claxton out for personal reasons.
Porter played six seasons for the Nuggets after being taken with the No. 14 pick in the 2018 draft and was a starter on their 2023 NBA championship team. He was traded to Brooklyn in the offseason for Cam Johnson and came in averaging a career-high 25.8 points.
He scored nine points in the second quarter and Brooklyn led 59-52 at halftime after Murray’s jumper with 0.2 seconds to play.
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The Nets quickly opened it up again in the third quarter. Brooklyn was 7 for 9 from three-point range in the period, scoring 41 points and taking a 100-84 advantage to the fourth.
Tim Hardaway Jr. had two three-pointers to open the fourth and cut it to 10, but Thomas had the last seven points of a 12-0 spurt that blew it open at 112-90.
Hardaway scored 26 but Denver fell to 1-4 on its seven-game East Coast trip. Johnson sat out with a knee injury.
Up next
Nuggets: Visit Philadelphia on Monday.
Nets: Host Orlando on Tuesday.