Zion Williamson returned on Wednesday night and the New Orleans Pelicans played better.
But the outcome remained familiar as the Denver Nuggets wore down the Pelicans and handed them their seventh consecutive defeat 125-118 on Wednesday night in the Smoothie King Center.
Williamson returned after missing the previous eight games with a strained left hamstring and gave the team an early lift, but he finished with just 14 points in 29 minutes. Rookie Derik Queen led New Orleans with a career-high 30 points, Trey Murphy scored 23 and Jeremiah Fears added 16. Karlo Matkovic was sidelined by a strained right calf.
The Pelicans (2-13) will play at Dallas, which they defeated 101-99 on the road Nov. 5, on Friday before returning home to play Atlanta on Saturday.
Nikola Jokic had 28 points, 12 assists and 11 rebounds, but he committed eight turnovers before fouling out with 2:44 left in the game. Peyton Watson scored 32, Jamal Murray had 16, Cameron Johnson had 14, and former Pelicans players Jonas Valunciunas and Bruce Brown combined to score 26 points for the Nuggets (11-3), who defeated New Orleans 122-88 on Oct. 29.
Watson scored eight points during a 14-6 run to start the third quarter, increasing Denver’s lead to 76-64. Murphy made consecutive 3-pointers and New Orleans got within eight points, but the Nuggets took a 97-83 lead at the end of the quarter.
Queen scored 15 points in the fourth quarter, and the Pelicans crept within six points in the final minute but got no closer.
Pelicans interim coach James Borrego said before the game that New Orleans needed to “flip the script” after having extremely poor first quarters followed by much better second quarters in recent games.
The Pelicans trailed at the end of the first quarter in each of the four previous games of the home stand, the last three by double figures. But they got off to a much better start against the Nuggets as Williamson scored six points in the first four minutes as they raced to a 23-10 lead midway through the quarter while Jokic was scoreless.
But Jokic wound up scoring 10 points in the quarter, and Denver trimmed New Orleans’ lead to 30-26 at the end of the period.
The lead changed hands seven times and the score was tied seven times in the second quarter. Watson’s 3-pointer produced the final lead change as he scored 12 points in the period, which ended with the Nuggets holding a 62-58 halftime lead.
