All it took for Nikola to get going were a few words of encouragement from Denver Nuggets coach Mike Malone at halftime.

Jokic scored 26 of his 33 points in the second half and Denver pulled out a 107-106 victory over the Dallas Mavericks to finish 3-2 on its longest road trip of the season.

Jokic had 21 points in the third quarter and delivered the winning basket with 7.9 seconds left in the fourth when he backed down on the right side of the lane and got a favorable bounce on his left-handed layup. Jokic, who was coming off a career-high 47 points Monday in a win over Atlanta, scored his first points of this one with 4:31 to play in the first half.

„No, I didn’t get on him: You've got to score 26 points this half," Malone said. "It was more,Just stay with it.’ He got really good looks in the first half. `Didn’t go down for you. We’re going to keep on going to you.“

Luka Doncic led Dallas with 27 points, 10 assists and nine rebounds — one rebound short of his 12th triple-double of the season.

After Jokic missed his only three shots of the first quarter and had seven points at halftime, he got rolling quickly.

„I missed a couple easy ones in the first half,“ Jokic said. „My teammates were passing me the ball and telling me to shoot. I was just trying to be aggressive and score as much as possible.“

IZVOR: ESPN

ESPN