Once neck-and-neck for a playoff seed, the Denver Nuggets and host Phoenix Suns will be on different sides of the play-in divide when they meet Tuesday.
The Nuggets (44-28) have won five of seven after topping the Portland Trail Blazers 128-112 on Sunday, a few hours before the Suns (40-32) broke a five-game losing streak by rolling past the Toronto Raptors 120-98.
Denver was tied with the Rockets (43-27) and the Timberwolves (44-28) for fourth place in the West ahead of Houston’s game against the Chicago Bulls on Monday. Denver, Minnesota and Houston are in position to challenge the current third seed, the Los Angeles Lakers (46-25). The top four teams get home-court advantage in the first playoff round.
“We’ve got some good teams on the schedule left in these 10 games, so these are games that we need,” Denver’s Cameron Johnson, a former Sun, said after scoring 19 against the Trail Blazers.
The Suns are seemingly locked into the No. 7 seed with 10 games remaining. Teams in places seven through 10 must fight for playoff berths through the play-in event.
“We put ourselves in a tough position to make it to the six (seed) now,” Suns guard Devin Booker said. “I think now we just need to focus on playing the right brand of basketball, the right style of basketball. Learn from the past five games and continue to move forward. Whatever happens moving forward, if that is play-in, we handle that when it gets here.”
Booker scored 25 points against Toronto, when the beleaguered Suns again played without starters Dillon Brooks (hand), Mark Williams (foot) and Royce O’Neale (knee) and top bench scorer Grayson Allen (knee).
The Suns had an 18-point halftime lead over the Raptors and built that to 30 late in the third quarter, enabling coach Jordan Ott to sit Booker in the fourth quarter to rest a right ankle that he tweaked on the final play of a 101-100 loss at San Antonio on March 19.
“It was much needed, got to sit the whole fourth quarter,” Booker said. “Tough with Denver coming next, so any rest time is good for us right now.”
Ott said of Booker, “Obviously, body is not feeling great. He’s our leader for a reason, because of what he does on a day-to-day basis.”
Collin Gillespie scored 16 points and made four of the Suns’ 18 3-pointers on Sunday. Reserves Ryan Dunn and Rasheer Fleming combined for 23 points, 10 rebounds and five steals.
Nikola Jokic had his 28th triple-double of the season by the end of the third quarter against Portland, and he wound up with 22 points, 14 rebounds and 14 assists. The Nuggets came as close to full health as they have been in months with the return of wing Peyton Watson.
Watson, who missed six weeks with a right hamstring injury, scored 14 points and added six rebounds and three assists in 20 minutes off the bench. Jokic and Aaron Gordon had missed large chunks earlier in the season due to injuries.
“Let’s be patient with Peyton,” Nuggets coach David Adelman said. “Peyton is not going to play 40 minutes and guard the best player every night the first week he comes back. It’s going to take some time.”
Denver held Portland to 43 points in the second half, and Jokic attributed that to an increase in defensive intensity.
“We need to use fouls and be aggressive and test the officials,” Jokic said. “When we started played like that in the second half, we were playing much better.”
