Nikola Jokic had 20 points, 11 assists and nine rebounds, Michael Porter Jr. scored 30 points, and the visiting Denver Nuggets rallied from 20 down to beat the Sacramento Kings 113-106 on Tuesday night.

Jamal Murray had 25 points and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope finished with 11 for the Nuggets, who have won five straight.

De’Aaron Fox scored 26, Kevin Huerter had 21, Harrison Barnes finished with 13 and Keegan Murray and Trey Lyles added 11 each for Sacramento.

Kings coach Mike Brown was placed in health and safety protocol early Tuesday and assistant Jordi Fernandez led the team. Sacramento also was without center Domantas Sabonis, who has an avulsion fracture in his right thumb.

Denver’s Aaron Gordon was a late scratch with a right shoulder injury, and Bruce Brown suffered a sprained ankle in the first half and did not return.

The Kings used a 19-4 stretch to take a 39-22 lead in the second quarter, and the advantage grew to 20 on a 3-pointer by Huerter. Porter scored 10 of 19 first-half points in the final 6:21 to help Denver get within 56-47 at intermission.

Sacramento led by 11 early in the third when the Nuggets rallied behind Jokic, who scored 10 points in a 14-6 run that cut the Kings’ lead to 66-63. Sacramento went up 70-65, but Jokic hit a jumper and fed Vlatko Cancar for a layup to make it 70-69 midway through.

The lead seesawed between four and two the rest of the quarter and the Kings went into the fourth with an 83-79 advantage.

Bones Hyland and Cancar hit 3-pointers early in the fourth to get Denver within one again, and Murray’s layup with 9:24 left gave the Nuggets their first lead since early in the game.

Fox hit a 3-pointer to put Sacramento ahead 90-87, but Porter and Cancar hit consecutive 3-pointers to give Denver a 95-92 lead. Malik Monk tied it with two free throws with 3:28 left, but Porter and Murray hit 3-pointers and Murray had a steal and layup to make it 104-96 with 2:18 left.

–Field Level Media

Klay Thompson had a game-high 29 points, Jonathan Kuminga hit three key late hoops and the Golden State Warriors survived a cold shooting night from 3-point range to edge the Charlotte Hornets 110-105 in San Francisco on Tuesday night.

Playing once again without injured stars Stephen Curry and Andrew Wiggins, the Warriors improved their league-best home record to 14-2 despite watching an 18-point lead disappear.

Completing an energetic performance on the second night of a back-to-back, Charlotte got consecutive 3-pointers from LaMelo Ball and Gordon Hayward to draw even at 101-all with 4:19 to play.

After the teams went more than a minute and a half without a point, Kuminga put Golden State ahead for good with the first of his three difference-making baskets, a dunk off a Jordan Poole assist with 2:45 to go.

Kuminga added a short floater off a Draymond Green assist. After Poole scored from the interior and Ball responded by sinking two foul shots, Kuminga threw down another dunk off another Poole dish for a commanding 109-103 advantage with 21.1 seconds remaining.

Thompson did a majority of his scoring on 5-for-12 shooting from long range, but his teammates combined to go just 3-for-25 from beyond the arc.

Poole missed six of his seven 3-point shots but nonetheless backed Thompson with 24 points to go with six assists.

Kuminga finished with 14 points off the bench and Kevon Looney had 11 to complement nine rebounds for the Warriors, who have opened an eight-game homestand with two wins. Green chipped in with nine points, a team-high 11 rebounds and five assists, while Donte contributed nine rebounds and a game-high seven assists on a scoreless night.

Losing for the fourth time as they concluded a six-game trip, the Hornets got 21 points and 10 rebounds from Ball and a game-high 13 rebounds from Mason Plumlee.

Terry Rozier backed Ball with 19 points, while P.J. Washington and Hayward chipped in 14 apiece and Jalen McDaniels had 12.

The Hornets finished 10-for-38 (26.3 percent) from 3-point range, not much better than Golden State’s 8-for-37 (21.6 percent).

–Field Level Media

The Milwaukee Bucks’ season-worst losing streak has reinforced the notion that bad things come in threes.

The Bucks will look to end the three-game drought during a visit to the Chicago Bulls on Wednesday, when they aim to come untracked from behind the 3-point arc.

A 139-118 loss at NBA-leading Boston on Christmas Day saw the Celtics drill 19 baskets from 3-point range to Milwaukee’s 13. Grayson Allen, the Bucks’ leading 3-point shooter at 41.2 percent, missed each of his three attempts from deep and has tried just 17 long-range attempts in his past seven games.

“The sentiment of getting more threes up, I agree with and I need to do that,” Allen said. “I need to find ways to do that.”

Milwaukee has been without Khris Middleton (right knee soreness) for the past five games. Middleton told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel the swelling in his knee gradually has subsided as he takes the injury day-by-day.

“Just trying to make sure that the next time I go back out there I’ll be out there for the long run,” Middleton said.

Giannis Antetokounmpo scored 27 points at Boston to lead five Milwaukee players in double figures.

Chicago, meanwhile, saw its season-high, three-game winning streak snapped with a 133-118 loss to the visiting Houston Rockets on Monday. Chicago surrendered a 17-1 third-quarter run in the opener of a four-game homestand that concludes with three straight contests against Central Division foes.

The Bulls, who are in 11th place in the Eastern Conference, are eager to make up ground. The urgency the team showed during the winning streak seemingly dissipated against the Rockets, who opened the game on a 23-5 tear.

Chicago’s DeMar DeRozan, who scored a team-high 31 points, called the start “unacceptable.”

“We can’t feel out games,” DeRozan said. “We gotta go out the gate and treat it like it’s the fourth quarter. That’s just how we have to play. We have to be more aware of that.”

Monday marked the first time the Bulls have lost while leading at halftime this season, stopping a string of eight straight wins in that scenario to start the campaign.

A lack of depth, especially on the defensive side, was evident down the stretch as the Bulls played without Alex Caruso (concussion), Javonte Green (right knee soreness) and Derrick Jones Jr. (left ankle sprain).

“In the fourth, we started to try to switch just to keep the ball in front of us,” Bulls coach Billy Donovan said. “I know (Nikola Vucevic) got caught in a couple mismatches, which I was fine with because I felt they were hurting us from behind the line because we got into rotations. I was just trying to do something different.

“But whatever you have out there group-wise, there’s enough out there to win in my opinion. We have to be better defensively. We have to coach them better and help them more.”

Chicago edged host Milwaukee 118-113 on Nov. 23 in the first of four meetings between the teams. DeRozan scored 36 points while the Bulls drilled 18 3-pointers and shot 42.9 percent from distance.

Milwaukee has won 16 of the last 18 games between the teams, going back to January 2018.

–Field Level Media