Nets overcome Nikola Jokic to stun Nuggets in statement win

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DENVER — Nikola Jokic played like an MVP. But the Nets played like a team, and got their first signature win since remaking their roster.

Brooklyn got the defensive stops when it needed, and gutted out a come-from-behind 122-120 victory over the Nuggets, stunning the Western Conference-leaders and their sellout crowd of 19,739 at Ball Arena.

“Yeah, so what we talked about: Complete, not complain. And we did a great job of really staying together,” Jacque Vaughn said. “They came out third quarter with one of the most impressive quarters I’ve been around with this team. … So we stayed together. Impressive win on the road.”

Jokic was dominant, finishing with 35 points, 20 rebounds and 11 assists. But after the Nets used a 37-18 third quarter to turn a deficit into a lead, they held it against the two-time MVP.

Up by a point, Royce O’Neale told the Nets he wanted the task of stopping Jokic, and forced him to miss a 15-footer with five seconds left.

Cam Johnson grabbed the rebound, and Mikal Bridges — who had a team-high 25 to lead seven Nets in double figures — made one of two at the line.

Jokic’s missed 3 at the buzzer sealed the Nets’ fifth victory in six games — and first statement win since the Kevin Durant-Kyrie Irving trades.

“The biggest thing is just staying together. It’s just unbelievable to see with just the little bit of time we’ve had together,” Bridges said.

“But we were all confident when we all came here and we were put together and just kind of had that mentality, ‘OK, a lot of us got traded so you feel some type of way, and you just want to go out there and hoop.’ It’s just crazy how fast it’s [come together] where we just stick together no matter what the situation is, being down 13, then making runs and keeping that lead.”

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It was a game of runs, but the Nets held off the last one by West-leading Denver (46-22), who is now 30-6 at home.

“That defensive identity is something JV has talked about since Day 1,” said Spencer Dinwiddie, who had 15 points and a career-high 16 assists. He played a great lob game with Nic Claxton (20 points, six boards, five assists).

“We can’t put ourselves in a hole like that,” Claxton said. “But we were really just locking in the second half of games and [this] was a great, great, great road win.”

Claxton started on Aaron Gordon, with Dorian Finney-Smith fronting the bruising 6-foot-11, 284-pound Jokic.

The Nets (39-29) were down 33-32 after ex-Net Jeff Green found Jamal Murray for a 3, but they mounted a 17-6 run.

Seth Curry’s step-back 3 capped it and gave them a 49-39 edge.

It was 53-45 with 5:49 left in the second quarter before Jokic sparked a 24-8 Nuggets run to close the half.

But just as they had in Minnesota on Friday, the Nets stormed out of the locker room.

Down 77-71 after a Jokic free throw with 8:59 left in the third, Brooklyn used a 15-3 run to surge ahead.

Bridges’ free throw gave them an 86-60 lead, and they padded that cushion to 109-94 on a Joe Harris 3 with 8:11 to play.

Jokic dragged Denver on his sizeable back, his free throw cutting it to 121-120 with 41.6 seconds left.

Dinwiddie penetrated and drew a foul on the MVP with 23.2 seconds remaining, but the Nuggets challenged and the call was overturned to an offensive foul.

But the Nets kept their composure, with O’Neale and Dinwiddie forcing the Jokic miss.

“We thought Spencer was gonna get the foul, but they reversed the call,” O’Neale said. “I told them I wanted to get to stop, and [them] just having that trust in me and the team effort to get that stop.”

The Nets leapfrogged the Knicks into fifth in the East. Bridges said it was losses to Chicago and the Knicks that gave them a wake-up call.

“Them little awakenings right there where listen, we got short time we got to figure this out and that’s where it was. Just little meetings and talking and figuring out our offense and our defense and we just had to move quick,” Bridges said. “And that’s what we did.”

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