Even the best Jokic can’t save the Nuggets, who continue to sow so many questions.

The Orlando Magic may be the NBA’s revelation team, but the Houston Rockets are also having a great campaign.

Jalen Green scored 25 points, Alperen Sengan added 21 points and 14 rebounds, and the Texans defeated the Denver Nuggets 105-86 in the penultimate round of the NBA Cup. Houston is currently 2-1 in the tournament with only a game remaining in Dallas, while Denver’s team is 2-2, which is balanced as the season has gone.

The current champion isn’t done yet. After starting the season 8-1, the Nuggets haven’t even had the best record, losing five of their last seven games. Nikola Jokic Today was enough for this season.Serbs went He scored 38 points, his best score so far this year, along with 19 rebounds and 8 assists. However, he was the only reliable player on the Colorado team and took as much time as needed to score.

This night was a disaster for the Nuggets in terms of percentages. He only scored 86 points, which explains why he didn’t score a single point. From the field he was 32/94 (34%) on goals, and even worse on triples he was 7/30 (23%). The Serbian scored his 14/31 right, but when the secondary player who was supposed to add a little bit signed his series of shooting like Reggie Jackson (1/7) or aaron gordon (0/12), There’s not much to do.

In fact, this was the Rockets’ plan, and it worked perfectly, as Ime Udoka himself, the coach of the Houston team, confessed that he wanted to let the Serbian player do what he wanted without punishing his teammates as well. “We defended Jokic.” After losing 10 in a row last time out, the Rockets have won three straight against the Nuggets, including both meetings this season.

jaylen green He became the local top scorer with 25 points. Sengun (21 points, 15 rebounds) jabari smith jr. (16 points, 15 rebounds) fred van veleet (17 points, 6 rebounds, 11 assists).

The Nuggets finished the trip with 1 win and 4 losses, and manager Michael Malone called it “disappointing” and announced changes to the rotation after his backup players scored just 10 points.