The Denver Nuggets have managed to have a good but unlucky season so far, for what it's worth. Well in the mix for the second seed in the Western Conference with the San Antonio Spurs, the Nuggets have battled numerous injuries all season, with Jamal Murray really being the only starter that hasn't missed significant time.

On Tuesday night, those injury absences continued, with Nikola Jokic, Cameron Johnson, and Christian Braun all ruled out for their contest against the Los Angeles Lakers, as the team looked to Murray and their remaining healthy players to try and pull out a win against a hungry Lakers side.

Finding a way to piece together areas they've struggled in, the Lakers' dominant second half helped put them on top and secure a 115-107 win over the Nuggets. While the Lakers held a sizeable advantage on the glass 51-31, a major driving force in their victory was Luka Doncic.

The Lakers star finished the night with 38 points, 13 rebounds, and 10 assists, committing just three turnovers and converting 11-of-12 attempts from the free-throw line. Even with the Nuggets having a handful of strong defenders to throw at him, sometimes there isn't much you can do to stop him.

After the game, head coach David Adelman spoke about the struggles of defending Doncic, a player who can get hot and dominate offensively just like their star Nikola Jokic.

"Yeah, I mean it’s going to be tough every night. He was a minus-2, some of that is you look at the stats, the 10 assists bothers me. I think he was scoring a lot in the first half, but I thought guys were getting into him, doing the best they could, and then we were getting out and playing and attacking him," Adelman said.

Doncic scored 23 of his 38 points in the first half, slowing down in the second but getting involved as a passer and rebounder with seven each in the final half.

"As the game went on, I thought he sprinkled in what he does really well, which is pass the ball. Other guys started to score in a lot of different ways, like I said, in transition. He’s always going to be a problem, but 12 free throws is way too many. We fouled two three-point shooters on top of that," Adelman added.

The Nuggets rank in the middle of the pack among free throws allowed per game, with their opponents taking an average of 23.7 free throws and making 76.8% of them. On Tuesday, the Lakers shot just 66%, but earned 32 free throws compared to Denver's 19.

"So, some discipline things we can do better. Overall, I thought Peyton [Watson] gave great effort on him, I really did. We were trying to stay out of hitting him as much as we could just to not open up everybody else, but everybody else kind of got going in the second half just off their transition offense," he concluded.

At the end of the day, players like Doncic and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander are going to get calls and find ways to manipulate the defense into fouling them. While the Nuggets can certainly avoid lazy fouls, they caught a break when the Lakers missed 11 free throws.

Denver returns to action on Thursday to face the Washington Wizards on the road, with tip-off set for 7:00 p.m. EST.