Led by Jamal Murray’s 17 assists, Nuggets finish marathon road trip with gutsy win at Celtics
BOSTON — Finishing their seven-game road trip with a losing record wasn’t what the Nuggets had in mind at first, but under the circumstances, they’ll happily take 3-4.
Less undermanned than they were in Philadelphia but still fending without a traditional center, the Nuggets completed their Eastern Conference marathon with a 114-110 win over the Celtics on Wednesday night.
“I think this was an incredible road trip,” coach David Adelman said. “I think going 3-4 with all the things that happened — losing both of your centers, getting guys back on minutes restrictions, different people having to step in and play, beating Philly with nine players — yeah, I would say this road trip was very, very successful.”
Denver Nuggets guard Jamal Murray, left, wrestles for the ball against Boston Celtics guard Jordan Walsh, right, during the second half of an NBA basketball game, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026, in Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
Jamal Murray went for 22 points and 17 assists, breaking a career record that he set in his last game with 16 at Brooklyn. Peyton Watson led Denver in scoring with 30 points on a 6-for-7 performance from 3-point range, bringing his season percentage to 39.6%. Jalen Pickett and Zeke Nnaji earned another opportunity to play in David Adelman’s closing lineup, fresh off their heroic showings Monday at Philly.
“Really odd group,” Adelman said of that lineup, which also featured Watson, Murray and Christian Braun. “I never would have thought I’d finish a game with that team. But they played well. They deserved to finish the game.”
Denver assembled a 14-0 run in the middle of the fourth quarter for the second straight game, putting away the Eastern Conference’s second-place Celtics (23-13) by playing a switch-everything defense and making them play one-on-one. Boston amassed only 16 assists as a team. All three teams the Nuggets (25-12) defeated on their road trip are currently top-five seeds in the East.
Jaylen Brown led all scorers with 33, but on 29 shot attempts. He turned it over three times in the fourth quarter and seven times total. Boston kept pressing and fouling in the last minute, shaving an 11-point deficit to three before Murray clinched the game with a late free throw.
A road trip that seemed doomed after a loss to the Nets on Sunday ended with two consecutive unlikely wins.
“Solid,” Murray said, describing the road trip by joking that “we’ve lost a player each game. So it’s solid.”
Murray has never averaged seven assists in a season. He’s averaging 7.5 per game now, and he brought his assist-to-turnover ratio up to a stellar 3.28 on Wednesday with only two giveaways against Boston’s double-teams.
“My teammates were open,” Murray said. “So I was just finding them with the ball and trying to keep pressure on them, as well as pick my spots and play my game. It’s just a balance. Not just without Jok, but with everyone that’s out, just creating for other guys, and if it doesn’t work, creating again. And at the same time, with the mentality that I can’t be too passive, I’ve gotta also be aggressive. But I can’t be too aggressive; I’ve gotta get my teammates the ball.”
After entering halftime tied at 58 for the second straight game, the offense dried up on the Nuggets in the third quarter. They missed 11 straight shots during a six-minute scoreless stint and fell behind, 72-63. Then Murray buried a 3-pointer out of a timeout and found Tim Hardaway Jr. for another in transition the next possession. Suddenly, it was a one-score game again, and Denver was on its way to a 13-2 run that kept the game from spiraling.
Anfernee Simons was the Celtics’ antidote. He hit a couple of 3s while Brown was on the bench to take them into the fourth with an 82-79 lead and Denver’s non-Murray minutes looming.
Pickett, scoreless in the first three stanzas, helped weather the storm with a catch-and-shoot 3-pointer from Aaron Gordon and a floater in the pick-and-roll. Murray soon came in for Hardaway after only a four-minute rest.
As they did in Brooklyn, the Nuggets used Gordon off the bench in a sub pattern conducive to his minutes restriction that enabled him to be on the court when Murray wasn’t. Gordon said after his return from a hamstring injury that he felt a step slow on defense, and that was the case again on a few possessions in Boston. Still, he left an imprint with 12 points and six rebounds. He played 23 minutes, staying in the same range as last Sunday.
Spencer Jones, who started in Gordon’s usual spot at power forward, was “extremely sick” coming into the game and ended up exiting it early because of left foot soreness, according to the team.
Nnaji shouldered the majority of the backup center minutes again after his 21-point, eight-rebound performance in Philadelphia. It’s been a position where he has struggled in recent years, especially relative to the production of Denver’s lineups when he has played the four. But David Adelman hasn’t had any other choice but to use Nnaji at center recently, and he delivered again with clutch buckets in the fourth quarter and solid defense throughout the night.
Braun also played his second game back from an injury. He was frustrated at himself a couple of times throughout the night when he missed transition layups, but he came up huge with a corner 3-ball in front of the Nuggets’ bench during their fourth-quarter run, stretching the lead to five.
“Confidence builder for a player that’s been out for a long time,” Adelman said. “And (for) Aaron and CB, their minutes will rise as we go here. But just to have them back and to make the rotation longer, it gives us a chance to stay in games, and I don’t have to play guys into the ground.”
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