Jonas Valančiūnas reached 1,000 NBA games on Wednesday and made the night count, scoring 14 points in 13 minutes as the Denver Nuggets beat the Memphis Grizzlies 136-119. He came off the bench, went 6-for-6 from the field and 2-for-3 from the free-throw line, and also added four rebounds and two blocks.
The Nuggets' bench led by Valančiūnas helped Denver improve to 52-28, leaving it 1.5 games ahead of the Los Angeles Lakers for the Western Conference's third seed after the win. Denver later marked the milestone with a brief note: “New milestone achieved ✔️”.
For Valančiūnas, the game landed in the middle of a first season in Denver that has already asked him to do a lot in a short stretch. The Nuggets acquired him in exchange for Dario Saric, and he has appeared in 63 games while averaging 13.0 minutes, 8.4 points, 4.8 rebounds and 1.1 assists per game.
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The milestone also fits the long arc of a career that began in 2012 with the Toronto Raptors, who took him fifth overall in the draft. He played 470 games over seven seasons in Toronto before being traded to Memphis in 2019, then moving to the New Orleans Pelicans in the offseason of 2021 and later to Sacramento, where he played 32 games last season and averaged 8.7 points and 7.0 rebounds. Valančiūnas had been hoping to leave the NBA and play for a team in Greece, but he decided to finish the year with Denver instead, and the 1,000th game showed why the Nuggets wanted him. He gave them efficient scoring, size and a veteran presence in a win that tightened the race for seeding out West.
