SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Devonte’ Graham converted a floater in the lane with 0.9 seconds remaining, and the San Antonio Spurs handed Western Conference-leading Denver a potentially damaging loss, rallying from 23 points down to beat the Nuggets 121-120 on Friday night.
The Nuggets (56-25) fell out of sole possession of first place in the West and into a tie with Minnesota and Oklahoma City. Because of tiebreakers, the Timberwolves were first, the Thunder second and the Nuggets third heading into the final day of the regular season on Sunday.
Victor Wembanyama had 34 points and 12 rebounds for the short-handed Spurs, who are last in the West.
Jamal Murray had 35 points and Nikola Jokic had 22 points and 12 rebounds for Denver, which led 76-53 early in the third quarter and still had a 17-point advantage early in the fourth.
Graham, who finished with 11 points, got the Spurs within one on a layup with 30.3 seconds left. Jokic missed a 17-footer with 9 seconds remaining to set up Graham’s game-winner.
Sandro Mamukelashvili scored a season-high 21 points and had 12 rebounds for the Spurs (21-60), who avoided matching the worst record in franchise history (20-62 in 1997).
The Spurs were without Devin Vassell, Jeremy Sochan, Keldon Johnson, Malaki Branham and Cedi Osman but still outscored the defending NBA champion Nuggets 34-20 in the fourth quarter.
San Antonio cut into Denver’s big leads with a 16-4 run in the third — capped by a 3 from Wembanyama — and a 14-2 burst in the fourth that Mamukelashvili finished with a driving layup.
The Nuggets missed six of their final seven shots, scoring their final points on Aaron Gordon’s layup with 1:19 left.
UP NEXT
Nuggets: At Memphis on Sunday night.
Spurs: Host Detroit on Sunday night.
___
AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/nba
