Nuggets' Tim Hardaway Jr. leads late comeback win over Raptors

Bennett Durando, The Denver Post on Mar 21, 2026

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DENVER — With a possessed glare in his eye that Ball Arena hasn’t seen since the Nuggets let Russell Westbrook walk, Tim Hardaway Jr. signaled for a timeout on Toronto’s behalf.

The Nuggets have lacked an edge lately, as the dog days of the regular season have threatened to derail their playoff seeding. With a barrage of 3-pointers and an eagerness to play to the crowd, Hardaway tried to provide that edge Friday night. His heat check and Denver’s switchable bench lineup galvanized a 121-115 comeback win over the Raptors.

Toronto led by as many as 11 points late in the third quarter and by nine entering the fourth, as Nikola Jokic sat for a rest. The Nuggets went small, like they did in the first half, with Spencer Jones at center. Jamal Murray and Cam Johnson staggered with the unit. Bruce Brown started the run with a 3-pointer, and Denver was off and running. Hardaway scored nine of his 23 points in the final frame, including the go-ahead triple with 5:38 late that prompted the timeout from Raptors coach Darko Rajakovic.

Denver’s 33-year-old shooting guard reveled in the moment, mean-mugging his way to the huddle.

Murray led the Nuggets (43-28) with 31 points on 18 shots. Jokic went for 22 points, eight boards and nine assists. He scored the eventual game-winner with 44 seconds left, a contested 10-footer in the lane. Hardaway and Brown combined for 35 points off the bench on 9-for-13 outside shooting.

Nuggets coach David Adelman stuck to mostly an eight-man rotation for Denver’s third game in four nights. Tyus Jones had a three-minute stint sprinkled in. Backup center Jonas Valanciunas didn’t play.

The Nuggets desperately needed the win coming off a sour loss Wednesday in Memphis. They looked ready to bounce back early, hanging around when shots weren’t falling. Toronto, a team firmly in the Eastern Conference playoff picture, excels in transition and in the paint but struggles with perimeter shooting. Denver did a solid job packing it in early to prevent Scottie Barnes and company from getting downhill easily.

But with a 13-for-15 start to the second half, Toronto surged to an 83-72 edge. The Nuggets had limited their visitors to 18 points in the paint en route to a four-point halftime lead. Now they suddenly looked lethargic. Turnovers plagued them. Hustle plays were an inconvenience. The Raptors were dictating the tempo.

Adelman’s small-ball bench lineup had to act as a catalyst for the second time in as many weeks. Jones played center nine days earlier to lead a fourth-quarter comeback charge in San Antonio.

Jokic was coming off a 10-turnover game in Memphis that matched his career high and was indicative of his recent trend of sloppiness. Before he injured his knee and missed a month, he had eight games in the first 32 of the season with five or more turnovers committed. Since returning from that injury, he has 11 such games out of 22.

His turnover rate post-injury is up 3% from how he started the season, when he was playing some of the cleanest basketball of his career from the elbows. The mistakes have also increased routinely when Aaron Gordon is out — as he was Wednesday — removing Denver’s best short-corner threat from the floor-spacing map.

“I would say the main theme of those (high-turnover) games is when the other guys have to take more responsibility to bring the ball up,” Adelman said. “Teams that put a small forward … on a center, that doesn’t allow Nikola to bring the ball up the floor. I think there were a lot of times we put him in compromised situations (in Memphis). … The Aaron effect is real in isolations and post-ups just because if you bring a body, he basically absorbs your rotation. … Those are the two themes I’ve noticed.

“They’re his mistakes, no question. He has to cut those down. He’s gonna turn it over because of his usage rate. But the other guys, too, have to take it on themselves and get the ball up the floor, get us organized as well. And it’s not always gonna be perfect. There’s not always gonna be Jamal Murray on the floor. Sometimes they take him away too. So it’s a team issue. And obviously, he’s the one who gets the statistics.”

Barnes took on Jokic and fronted him aggressively, agitating him early in the game, but the three-time MVP managed to fight through it and limit his turnovers to two this time. The Nuggets committed just 10 as a team.