DENVER (AP) — Jamal Murray and the Denver Nuggets raced out to a 19-0 lead in the opening four minutes and tied a franchise record for 3-pointers with 24, cruising to a 135-112 victory over the Utah Jazz on Monday night.
It was the second time in 17 days that Utah got down big before hitting a shot or a free throw. The New York Knicks led the Jazz 23-0 on their way to a 146-112 win on Dec. 5.
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Utah Jazz guard Keyonte George, right, drives to the basket as Denver Nuggets forward Cameron Johnson, left, defends in the first half of an NBA basketball game Monday, Dec. 22, 2025, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
Denver Nuggets forward Spencer Jones, center, collects a loose ball as Utah Jazz forwards Svi Mykhailiuk, left, and Lauri Markkanen defend in the first half of an NBA basketball game Monday, Dec. 22, 2025, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
Denver Nuggets guard Tim Hardaway Jr., left, drives past Utah Jazz forward Lauri Markkanen, right, in the first half of an NBA basketball game Monday, Dec. 22, 2025, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokić, center, drives to the rim between Utah Jazz forwards Taylor Hendricks, left, and Brice Sensabaugh in the first half of an NBA basketball game Monday, Dec. 22, 2025, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
Denver Nuggets guard Jamal Murray, right, shoots for a basket as Utah Jazz forward Ace Bailey defends in the first half of an NBA basketball game Monday, Dec. 22, 2025, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
The biggest run to open an NBA game was 29-0 by the Los Angeles Lakers against Sacramento on Feb. 4, 1987.
Denver shot 68.2% in the first quarter and made 15 of 28 from 3-point range in the first half, five by Murray. He scored 27 points and Cameron Johnson went 6 of 6 from deep to finish with 20.
Nikola Jokic had 14 points, 13 rebounds and 13 assists, and Peyton Watson scored 20 after missing two games.
Jokic got his 14th triple-double of the season and 178th of his career when he fed Watson for a layup with 7:10 left in the third quarter.
Lauri Markkanen had 27 points and Keyonte George scored 20 for Utah, which has dropped three straight.
The Nuggets shot 7 of 9 to start the game while Utah missed its first 10 field goal attempts and committed two turnovers. A corner 3-pointer by Brice Sensabaugh with 7:06 left in the first made it 19-3 but Denver kept surging, leading 33-5 with 4:42 remaining in the period.
The Nuggets led 94-67 before a 13-2 run by the Jazz cut the deficit to 17 late in the third quarter. They trailed 105-88 early in the fourth when Tim Hardaway Jr., who finished with 21 points, hit three 3-pointers in 46 seconds.
Jazz: Host the Memphis Grizzlies on Tuesday night.
Nuggets: At the Dallas Mavericks on Tuesday night.
AP NBA: https://www.apnews.com/hub/NBA
Utah Jazz guard Keyonte George, right, drives to the basket as Denver Nuggets forward Cameron Johnson, left, defends in the first half of an NBA basketball game Monday, Dec. 22, 2025, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
Denver Nuggets forward Spencer Jones, center, collects a loose ball as Utah Jazz forwards Svi Mykhailiuk, left, and Lauri Markkanen defend in the first half of an NBA basketball game Monday, Dec. 22, 2025, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
Denver Nuggets guard Tim Hardaway Jr., left, drives past Utah Jazz forward Lauri Markkanen, right, in the first half of an NBA basketball game Monday, Dec. 22, 2025, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokić, center, drives to the rim between Utah Jazz forwards Taylor Hendricks, left, and Brice Sensabaugh in the first half of an NBA basketball game Monday, Dec. 22, 2025, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
Denver Nuggets guard Jamal Murray, right, shoots for a basket as Utah Jazz forward Ace Bailey defends in the first half of an NBA basketball game Monday, Dec. 22, 2025, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
RICHMOND, Calif. (AP) — Betty Reid Soskin, who rose to national fame as the oldest National Park Service ranger and used the spotlight to talk about the African American experience during World War II, has died. She was 104.
Her family and the park service announced her death through social media, saying she was surrounded by loved ones at her home in California when she died Sunday. They did not release a cause of death.
“She was a powerful voice for sharing her personal experiences, highlighting untold stories, and honoring the contributions of women from diverse backgrounds who worked on the World War II Home Front. Thank you for your service, Ranger Betty,” the park service said in a statement.
When she was 85, the longtime community activist was hired as an interpretive ranger at the Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond, California. The site at a former shipyard and other parts of the working-class city honors American civilians, including the women who worked in war-related industries, who worked on the homefront during the war.
Soskin helped plan the park while working as a state legislative aide. She played a key role in shaping and designing the park by ensuring that it included the oftentimes overlooked contributions of Black men and women.
They include the 202 Black sailors who were killed in the July 1944 explosion at Port Chicago, on the northeastern flank of San Francisco Bay, where they were assigned to a segregated unit, loading munitions onto cargo ships bound for the Pacific Theater. Unsafe working conditions led 50 survivors of the blast to refuse loading munitions. They were court-martialed and convicted of mutiny in a trial that exposed systemic racial inequality in the Navy.
As a Black woman, Soskin worked as a clerk for the all-Black boilermaker’s union in Richmond. She advocated for telling the stories of the “non Rosies” who didn’t get to help build the battleships because of the color of their skin.
“Rosie the Riveter represents the white woman’s experience on the homefront during the war, but as a woman of color, I was never recognized for my work,” she wrote in an October 2020 essay for Newsweek.
“I had never understood that I had been involved in the building of the ships. Because at the time, I was 20 years old. I didn’t realize what my role was until I began to go back and recount it for others. It was rather amazing.”
Those who got to meet Soskin during visits to the park took to social media Monday to say it was an honor and that she was an amazing woman. One described her as a jewel of the park system, while others said she served as a great inspiration for young rangers.
Born in 1921, Soskin wore many hats throughout her life — a mother, daughter, musician, author, political activist, wife, record store owner, songwriter, painter, grandmother, great-grandmother, prolific blogger and more, as her family recounted.
Her family posted on social media that she had led “a fully packed life and was ready to leave.”
While a public memorial has yet to be announced, the family said people can share their affection for Soskin through donations to a school that had been renamed in her honor: Betty Reid Soskin Middle School in El Sobrante, California.
She had just celebrated her birthday with a visit to the school in September, cheers erupting as she waved to excited children.
In 1995, Soskin was named Woman of the Year by the California State Legislature and about a decade later she received the National WWII Museum’s Silver Service Medallion.
She explored her nine decades of living through extraordinary moments of history in her 2018 autobiography “Sign My Name to Freedom: A Memoir of a Pioneering Life.”
Her experiences included opening Reid’s Records, an influential Black-owned record store in Berkeley with her first husband, Mel Reid, and being the first Black family to live in suburban Walnut Creek.
Someone burned a cross on their lawn, she wrote, but her family refused to move. She pointed out that the same community that tried to drive her family away elected her 20 years later to serve as a delegate to the 1972 Democratic National Convention.
“That is how fast social change occurred,” she said.
At the park, her weekly lectures drew large audiences. They also garnered national attention, including the chance to introduce then-President Barack Obama at the Christmas tree lighting ceremony in 2015. In 2008, Glamour Magazine named her one of its women of the year.
“I became a ranger when most people retire so I had no idea what it required of me, but it opened up a lot of opportunities that would have been closed to me otherwise,” she wrote in her essay.
She retired on March 31, 2022.
Soskin is survived by two of her four children: Bob and Dorian Reid.
Biographical material in this story was written by AP journalist Daisy Nguyen. Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, New Mexico, contributed to this report.
FILE - Lifetime achievement honoree Betty Reid Soskin attends the Glamour Women of the Year Awards at Spring Studios, Nov. 12, 2018, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)
FILE - National Park Service Ranger Betty Reid Soskin at the visitors center of the Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park where she works in Richmond, Calif., July 26, 2016. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg, File)
FILE - National Park Service Ranger Betty Reid Soskin works at the visitors center of the Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond, Calif., July 26, 2016. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg, File)
FILE - National Park Service Ranger Betty Reid Soskin works at the Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond, Calif., July 12, 2016. (AP Photo/Ben Margot, file)
FILE - National Park Service Ranger Betty Reid Soskin smiles during an interview at the Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond, Calif., July 12, 2016. (AP Photo/Ben Margot, File)
