The San Antonio Spurs (17 - 7) defeated the Denver Nuggets (10 - 14) 99 - 91 on Sunday. San Antonio has lost two of their last four games, with both recent losses coming against non - playoff teams, the Utah Jazz and Los Angeles Lakers. Sunday's win over the Nuggets was accomplished with Tony Parker sitting out with a lingering hamstring issue that has caused him to miss four of the last five games. Kawhi Leonard (hand) returned from a two - game absence to record a team - high 18 points in 37 minutes. The Spurs forced the Nuggets into 21 turnovers that resulted in 30 easy points for the Spurs, using the Nuggets' inability to protect the ball to gain an advantage. San Antonio will conclude their two - game road trip against the Portland Trail Blazers on Monday. Denver has lost six of their last seven games. While they are traversing a rather difficult part of their schedule, the Nuggets' regression over the last two weeks seems more of a regression to the mean than merely a poor stretch. Kenneth Faried sat out the game with an ankle injury, and the team continues to ride the hot hand from game to game, showing little faith in most of their players to account for a poor start and make adjustments. Coach Brian Shaw tends to yank anyone he deems to be underperforming in favor of throwing his bench players into the fray in wild attempts to find an elixir for their problems within a given game. Arron Afflalo scored a game - high 31 points to keep them in Sunday's game, but Afflalo also committed six of the turnovers that proved to be their undoing. The Nuggets will host the Houston Rockets on Wednesday.
["PlayerStat(G,'Kawhi Leonard') has 2 3-pointers attempted ,has 37 Minutes played ,has 2 Offensive rebounds ,has 18 Points ."
 "PlayerStat(G,'Arron Afflalo') has 6 3-pointers attempted ,has 31 Minutes played ,has 6 Offensive rebounds ."]