Nuggets, Pacers avoid 0-3 hole

MANILA, Philippines — The NBA champion Denver Nuggets roared back into their Western Conference semifinal series with Minnesota with a 117-90 victory over the Timberwolves on Friday as the Indiana Pacers clawed back a game against the New York Knicks.

NBA Most Valuable Player Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray scored 24 points apiece, with Jokic adding 14 rebounds and nine assists for the Nuggets, who cut the deficit in their best-of-seven series to 2-1.

Denver dispelled any suggestion they would bow out quietly after they were humbled by the young Timberwolves in Games 1 and 2 in Denver.

The Pacers, who dropped the first two games of their Eastern Conference semifinal series in New York, also avoided an 0-3 hole with a 111-106 victory over the Knicks in Indianapolis.

“Everybody knows what it looks like when you go down 3-0,” Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton said, a nod to the fact that no NBA team has rallied from that deficit to win a playoff series.

“We had to come out play desperate, play hard,” added Haliburton, whose Pacers will now try to level the series at home on Sunday.

Denver will try to pull level on Sunday in Minneapolis, where Jokic said the Nuggets went into the contest determined to “play like a champion.”

“I think we played much simpler,” Jokic told broadcaster ESPN.