The Phoenix Suns beat the San Antonio Spurs 115-110 at Footprint Center on Sunday to secure their 10th straight win and become the first team to reach 40 wins of the season.

Having played probably the worst first three quarters this season, the Suns trailed 91-79. The whole team went 34-75 in field goals and 6-27 in 3-pointers. However, you could always trust Chris Paul's team to be able to rally in the last quarter. The team drained all five attempts from downtown and were 8-11 in the paint for a 36-19 run in Q4.

Paul, 36, stood behind the aggressive counterstrike by contributing six points and eight assists. He was one assist away from dropping 20 points and 20 assists for the Suns at home on Sunday night.

Devin Booker made two straight 3-pointers at 1:52 and 1:18 in the fourth quarter, lifting his team from trailing 108-106 to leading 112-108. Mikal Bridges and Cameron Johnson combined 5-6 under the rim for 14 points. Even undrafted rookie Ish Wainright scored seven points for the team in the last quarter.

All of their effort brought the Suns the second 10-game winning-streak and made their head coach Monty Williams coach of Team LeBron for the coming NBA All-Star Game.

"Over the course of the long season, there's nothing wrong with having a little benchmark, a little goal," Paul said. "I'm just happy for Monty, happy for our staff. That's cool."

"It's a huge blessing to be in this position where you can be the caretaker of an organization and represent the city, the team, your family," Williams said. "I'm mindful of all the sacrifices that people make so I can be in this position. It's a team effort for sure."

Nuggets shoot down Bucks with 23 triples

The Denver Nuggets defeated the Milwaukee Bucks 136-100 at Fiserv Forum on Sunday to achieve their fifth win in a row.

This was only the second time Nikola Jokic failed to reach 20 points in the 16 games he has played for the Nuggets in January, though he only missed it by one point. He was also one rebound away from a scoring a triple-double that could include 18 points and 15 assists. However, they were still very impressive stats to be achieved within 30 minutes, especially when he could get them shooting at 7-9 in FGs.

One of the major reasons for the much smaller load on Jokic's shoulders on Sunday night was the sharp 3-point shooting by the whole team. The Nuggets went 23-43 behind the arc against the Bucks and scored over 32 points in every of the four quarters. Eight of their players shot at better than 50 percent of 3-point rate on the floor.

The Bucks' defensive choices had a lot to do with this. Instead of having Giannis Antetokounmpo, the only one in their lineup with good enough size and power, to tussle with Jokic one-on-one, the team tried Bobby Portis, Wesley Matthews and other players to defend Jokic while Antetokounmpo stays close for either double-teaming or help defense.

Obviously the Bucks underestimated the passing skills of Jokic and the 3-point shooting of his teammates. Instead of tiring Jokic out, they saw their defense torn apart from both the inside and outside. The game was long gone after the third quarter.

"He (Jokic) was sitting there picking us apart," Jrue Holiday said. "We didn't give ourselves a chance to win."

"We had a lot of guys shoot the ball really really well tonight," Nuggets head coach Michael Malone said. "This is a really really good win for us."

Having averaged 26 points, 13.7 rebounds and 7.8 assists in 44 games so far this season, Jokic is moving steadily toward back-to-back NBA Most Valuable Player.

Other games on Sunday (away teams come first):

Los Angeles Lakers 121-129 Atlanta Hawks

Los Angeles Clippers 115-90 Charlotte Hornets

Portland Trail Blazers 116-130 Chicago Bulls

Cleveland Cavaliers 105-115 Detroit Pistons

Dallas Mavericks 108-110 Orlando Magic

Utah Jazz 106-126 Minnesota Timberwolves