Nuggets start trip with win as Nikola Jokic sets a new career high

Feb 24, 2025, 7:50 PM

Denver Sports Analyst

Nikola Jokic threw the most assists of his career on Monday night, as the Denver Nuggets held on to beat the Indiana Pacers 125-116 in starting an east-coast road trip.

Two nights after Joker couldn’t get the ball, he couldn’t give it up better. Tossing a career-high 19 helpers. The three-time MVP also tallied 19 points on 16 shots and added nine rebounds, plus four steals. Jokic is now 20 assists above the pace he needs to maintain to become just the sixth time a player has averaged a triple-double for an entire season. Jokic would be the first non-point guard ever to do that, joining now teammate Russell Westbrook (four times) and Oscar Robertson and Jokic even bests them as the only player to do so while shooting over 50% from the field.

“He has no weakness like there is not one chink in that armor,” Michael Malone said postgame. “The guy is just an amazing, complete basketball player. And I think the most remarkable thing is not just the 19 assists, but the satisfaction and joy that Nikola gets from making his teammates better. He’d be happy getting 19 assists no points and us winning more than any other superstar I’ve ever come across and that speaks to who he is. He’s a humble person and understands that this whole thing is always much bigger than the individual is to the collective… he’s just an incredible player and what a luxury to have when you can just play through him down the stretch of a close game and you know something good is gonna happen every time.”

Against the Pacers, Michael Porter Jr. had his best game after the All-Star Break with a double-double of 19 points on 16 shots and 11 rebounds. Aaron Gordon scored a game-high 25 points, splashing two threes. Jamal Murray poured in four from deep, notching 16 points as the team only made eight to the Pacers 14, which kept the home team hanging around.

But it was the Nuggets going plus-14 on the boards that was the big difference, with Christian Bruan snatching eight rebounds to go with 17 points. He went monster mode in the paint late to hammer in the final nail. It was the sixth time in Nuggets history all five starters scored at least 15 points while making more than half their shots.

Jokic had twice tallied 18 assists in a game before and had reached 17 twice this season. His new assist high means Jokic has now gotten both his career scoring high (56) and assist high this season. Jokic has obviously propelled the Nuggets who are now winners of 10 of their last 11, climbing back into second in the West with Memphis idle; Denver is almost 10 games back of Oklahoma City.

“It was good to get that bad taste out of our mouth, we watched the (Lakers) film, we owned it, and we went out there and beat a team that’s been playing really good basketball, so we’re not gonna celebrate because we know we have a tremendous challenge in Milwaukee coming up,” Malone said. “We’re just gonna take this four-game trip, one game at a time.”

The Nuggets continue their road trip with a busy weekend, starting Thursday with Milwaukee on TNT, followed by Detroit on Friday and an ABC-televised game on Sunday afternoon in Boston.