Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets dribbles the ball against the New York Knicks on Wednesday in Denver, Colorado. Photo: VCG

 

Nikola Jokic had 32 points and 12 rebounds, Austin Rivers tied his season high with 25 points against his former team, and the host Denver Nuggets beat the New York Knicks 113-97 on Wednesday night.

Michael Porter Jr scored 17 points and Facu Campazzo had 16 points, nine rebounds and, for the second straight game, added five steals for Denver (44-22). The Nuggets tied the Los Angeles Clippers for third in the Western Conference.

Immanuel Quickly scored 18 points and Julius Randle, Derrick Rose, RJ Barrett and Reggie Bullock scored 14 each for New York. The Knicks lost for just the second time in 14 games.

Jokic outscored New York on his own in the first quarter, 24-12, and his 10 free-throw attempts were six more than the Knicks' total.

New York (37-29) was called for three fouls on Denver's first possession and Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau drew a technical foul just 28 seconds into the game.

The ensuing free throw was the first point of the game and the Nuggets kept pouring it on. After Elfrid Payton's seven-­footer made it 3-2, Denver went on a 23-4 run. Jokic had 15 points in the surge, including two dunks.

Rose hit a corner three-pointer - just the second New York basket in more than six minutes - but Jokic had another dunk and hit two foul shots to end the period with the Nuggets ahead 34-12.

Denver went ahead by as many as 28 in the second quarter before the Knicks made a run. Quickly hit a three-pointer and Randle scored six straight points to get New York within 56-37. Campazzo hit a pair of three-pointers to get the lead to 64-43 at intermission.

The Nuggets got the lead back to 26 points in the third but the Knicks scored 10 straight on hot shooting by Barrett. Denver responded to go ahead by 21 and took an 89-69 lead into the fourth.

Elsewhere, Jordan Clarkson scored 30 points and Bojan Bogdanovic chipped in with 24 as the Utah Jazz crushed the San Antonio Spurs 126-94 in for their third consecutive win.

Combined with the Atlanta Hawks' 135-103 win over the Phoenix Suns, Utah regained first place in the Western Conference and the top record in the NBA. The Jazz (48-18) are now up a game on the Suns (47-19) with six games remaining in the regular season.

San Antonio (31-34) remains in the No.10 spot in the West, in the final position to make the NBA's new play-in tournament. Luka Samanic scored a team-high 15 points for the Spurs, who only shot 40.2 percent from the floor.

The Jazz shot a blistering 55.7 percent of their field-goal attempts and hit 18 of 41 (43.9 percent) from three-point range en route to their second straight double-digit home win over San Antonio in three days.

Utah rolled despite not having injured All-Star guards Donovan Mitchell and Mike Conley.