It required another Jamal Murray game-winner against Los Angeles, but the Denver Nuggets managed to defeat a Lakers team that lacked a lot of star power, 131-126, on Friday at Ball Arena.

“This isn’t a beauty pageant,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said postgame. “We don’t get rated on our wins. It’s a win.”

The ugly parts of Denver’s game included 19 offensive rebounds that the Lakers turned into 20 points and 12 turnovers that led to 19 more Lakers points.

Led by 37 points from Austin Reaves and 32 points from Prairie View High school product Dalton Knecht, the Lakers had the game tied at 126 in the final 30 seconds without LeBron James, Luka Doncic and others in uniform.

“It was good that we executed late,” Nuggets guard Christian Braun said.

“I don’t think we should’ve been in that position. We didn’t come out with the right approach and put ourselves kind of in a bad spot in a really big game. We can’t do that anymore.”

The Nuggets went to their battle-tested, two-man game between Murray and Nikola Jokic after Austin Reaves missed a jumper with 29 seconds left. With the Lakers continuing to front Jokic with a small defender, Jokic set a screen that took Knecht and Christian Koloko out of the play. Murray had plenty of time and space to hit his fifth 3-pointer of the game.

“We kind of went to it the last 4 minutes, 30 seconds,” Murray said of the two-man game. “We figured it out.”

Russell Westbrook then stole the ensuing in-bounds pass and threw down a dunk for the final points of the night.

Jokic led the Nuggets with 28 points, seven rebounds and five assists. Murray added 27 points, five assists and four rebounds, while Christian Braun posted 22 points on 9-of-10 shooting with six assists and five rebounds. Westbrook (17), Aaron Gordon (17) and Michael Porter Jr. (13) also scored in double figures for Denver.

A few weeks ago, the Lakers got 32 points from Doncic, 25 points from James, 23 points from Reaves and 21 more from Rui Hachimura in a 123-100 win at Ball Arena. Los Angeles used smaller defenders like Hachimura and Jarred Vanderbilt to front Jokic to limit his touches. The Lakers succeeded, holding Jokic to seven attempts from the field in 35 minutes of playing time. Jokic took 16 shots Friday.

“Joker shooting only 16 times, Jamal only shooting (16 shots), I got to get those guys more field-goal attempts,” Malone said. “I got to get those two guys 20, 25 shots a game, easy. That’s no disrespect to anybody else, but we need those guys to carry the offensive load.

Malone said pregame Jokic admitted it was a different kind of defense than he had ever seen.

“We’ve been talking about it ever since,” Malone said pregame. “We’ve seen a few teams try to employ the same strategy. … If you want to not see all that stuff, get some damn stops, because you can’t do all that if you’re rebounding and running.”

Reaves was the only one of Los Angeles’s four 20-point scores from the previous meeting in uniform Friday, a night after the Lakers lost in Milwaukee. James was back in Los Angeles, tending to a groin injury that has his status in question for the final matchups between the Nuggets and Lakers on Wednesday at Crypto.com Arena. Doncic was out with left calf injury management and a right ankle sprain, while Hachimura (left patellar tendinopathy), Jaxson Hayes (right knee contusion) Dorian Finney-Smith (left ankle injury management) and Gabe Vincent (left knee injury management) were among the Lakers not in uniform.

The Lakers started Jordan Goodwin, Alex Len, Knecht, Vanderbilt and Reaves. The Nuggets got Gordon back after a two-game absence to complete the regular starting five.

Vanderbilt started the game guarding Jokic, while Len, the Lakers’ starting center on the night, picked up Gordon. Jokic took nine of his shots in the first quarter. That left the late-game heroics for Murray, who made a couple of game-winners against the Lakers in last year’s first-round playoff series.

“Whenever you have a depleted lineup, you know that team is going to play really hard,” Murray said. “We’ve got to be better on defense and space better or whatever you think it may be, but most importantly, when you win, I think that say a lot as well, too. We’ll take it.”

NUGGETS 131, LAKERS 126

What happened: Los Angeles led by eight after the first quarter, but Denver took a 71-67 lead by halftime. The Lakers closed within three to start the fourth, and Denver had to score the final five points in the last 10 seconds to improve to 43-24.

What went right: The Nuggets doubled up the Lakers in free throw attempts. Denver got to the line 38 times, making 30 of them, while the Lakers went 13 for 16. Nikola Jokic’s 17 attempts was one shy of matching his career-high.

What went wrong: Denver played no defense in the first quarter. The Lakers scored 40 points and went 6 of 12 from 3-point range in the first 12 minutes. Los Angeles grabbed seven offensive rebounds and had six second-chance points at the start of the second quarter.

Highlight of the night: Christian Braun got a rare stop on Austin Reaves and capitalized on the break in the final few minutes to put Denver up five. With Reaves trying to operate in tight quarters, Braun ripped the ball away, raced down court and threw down a one-handed tomahawk slam.

Up next: The Nuggets are back at Ball Arena to host the Wizards on Sunday.