(SportsNetwork.com) - The Denver Nuggets had a seven-game winning streak snapped last time out, so they will try to reclaim some momentum on this road trip, which continues Friday night against the Boston Celtics.
The Nuggets had won four consecutive road games until a 98-88 setback in Cleveland on Wednesday. The tale of the tape was the Cavs big men, who dominated the Nuggets on the interior.
"You can't win a game when you give up 20 offensive rebounds like we did tonight," said Denver head coach Brian Shaw. "Their bigs just beat up on our bigs, is what it came down to."
The Cavaliers outrebounded the Nuggets, 58-43, as both Tristan Thompson and Anderson Varejao had double-figure rebounding nights.
Randy Foye led the Nuggets on Wednesday with 16 points on 3-for-6 shooting from long range. J.J. Hickson battled the Cleveland bigs as best he could and finished with 15 points and 11 boards. Nate Robinson (14) and Wilson Chandler (13) also cracked the 10-point plateau.
The Nuggets only shot 39.1 percent from the floor.
Denver still has stops in Philadelphia and Washington before returning to the high altitude of the Rocky Mountains.
The Celtics have won two of three and four of six to sit atop the Atlantic Division. Yes, the Celtics, at 8-12, are a half-game ahead of both the Sixers and Toronto Raptors in the Atlantic.
"It's pretty impressive to see after all of the games that we had going into November," forward Jared Sullinger said of leading the Atlantic Division. "We also understand that it's the NBA and you're going to have months like that. We just fought hard and got better every day and everybody's doing their work."
The C's went 7-11 in November.
Their most recent victory came on Tuesday when they atoned for a Saturday night loss by toppling the Milwaukee Bucks, 108-100 at the TD Bank Garden. After Milwaukee won by seven in their building, Boston shot 46 percent from long range en route to the win.
"It's funny how you evaluate the game sometimes; it's easy to say that we were way better tonight, but bottom line is we made some shots that we missed the other night," said head coach Brad Stevens.
Jordan Crawford led the way for Boston with 25 points. Jeff Green (18), Brandon Bass (16), Avery Bradley (15), Sullinger (12) and Courtney Lee (11) also figured prominently in the scoring column.
The two teams have split the last 14 meetings, although the Celtics are 13-2 in their last 15 against Denver in Boston.
Receive your weekly recap of all the happenings around the world of sports.