Temporary big three puts on show for Nuggets, win in Memphis

The Denver Nuggets won their sixth straight road game on the back of a Nikola Jokic triple-double, Jamal Murray's star show and Peyton Watson's fine understudy

BY JAKE SHAPIRO

Nov 24, 2025, 9:19 PM

Follow on Google News

Watch: Nuggets trade Watson — Is the Championship window closing? | Stokley and Evans with Mark Schlereth | 9 mins

The Denver Nuggets won their sixth straight road game on the back of a Nikola Jokic triple-double, Jamal Murray’s star show and Peyton Watson’s strong step in for Aaron Gordon and Christian Braun. The trio led the Mile High City hoopers past the Memphis Grizzlies 125-115.

Nikola Jokic tossed one of the best assists of his career, hit a heave and tallied his tenth triple-double of the year with 17 points on nine shots, 10 rebounds and 16 assists.

The Memphis Grizzlies announcers were FLOORED saying this is one of the best passes they have EVER SEEN.

WOW JOKIC pic.twitter.com/N8csst9Qsv

— Swipa (@SwipaCam) November 25, 2025

Nikola Jokic… Unreal.pic.twitter.com/BvBRbUIM6p

— Legion Hoops (@LegionHoops) November 25, 2025

Jamal Murray was awesome again, daggering deep triples, tossing tricky passes and leading the game with 29 points.

DEEP three from Jamal Murray pic.twitter.com/ifribPbWav

— Matt Brooks (@MattBrooksNBA) November 25, 2025

JAMAL MURRAY DIME TO THE CORNER pic.twitter.com/VWihqcgbeF

— Matt Brooks (@MattBrooksNBA) November 25, 2025

Peyton Watson scored 27 points on a career-best five triples with five rebounds, three assists, one block and one steal.

Peyton Watson 27 PTS, 5 REB, 3 AST, 1 STL, 1 BLK, 11/22 FG, 5/12 3FG, 61.4% TS vs Grizzlies https://t.co/Ed3RRA1Bir pic.twitter.com/TLLivtcR8u

— Basketball Performances (@NBAPerformances) November 25, 2025

“We’re really good. I think we’re only getting better as guys went down, more guys are stepping up and having confidence to play,” Murray said. “If we keep that up, the sky is the limit.”

Murray and Watson led the barrage from deep, as the Nuggets connected on 22 of their 43 shots from distance. It was the team’s first time hitting that many 3-pointers on the road since January of 2022. But it wasn’t all cake as Jock Landale and Jaylen Wells’ season-best performances led a late 12-0 Memphis run to push the Nuggets into a close game.

That’s when Murray and Jokic closed the door with Joker putting the final stamp — that nasty spinning bounce pass to Watson. The Nuggets have struggled a bit to close out games, especially since Braun and Gordon have gone down, but they shaped up in crunch time on Monday.

“I got left open a bit and Jokic wanted me to do that, so I did,” Murray said about the close.

Watson has been awesome in filling in for Braun first and now both the shooting guard and Gordon. He’s reaching new highs nearly nightly over the last week and was good down the stretch, too.

“A great win, great team win, a bunch of guys stepped up,” David Adelman said.

What’s next for the Nuggets?

The Nuggets are off some time for the holiday, then they’ll host the Spurs on Black Friday as their final NBA Cup group stage game. Denver is 2-1 in West Group C, nicknamed the pool of death for the caliber of teams in it. The Trail Blazers are in the driver’s seat at 2-1 thanks to a rough last-second foul call, which gave them the win over the Nuggets and the tiebreaker, even though Portland’s point differential in the competition is negative.

A Nuggets win likely gets them into the knockout stage either way, but coupled with a Portland loss to the Spurs and Denver would be the winners of their group. The Blazers had a wild comeback win against the Warriors on this Friday night, and play the Spurs on Wednesday so the Nuggets will know what they need against the Spurs before they even eat their turkey.