NUGGETS 108, 76ERS 105

PHILADELPHIA—A halftime tongue-lashing from their head coach turned the Denver Nuggets around on both ends of the floor.

Danilo Gallinari scored 24 points, including the go-ahead slam dunk with under a minute remaining, to lead Denver to a 108-105 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers on Saturday.

Robert Covington scored 18 points and Isaiah Canaan had 15 for Philadelphia, which dropped to 1-20.

Philadelphia rookie Jahil Okafor sat out the second of a two-game suspension imposed by the team on Wednesday after the release of a second video from a nightclub fight in Boston on Nov. 25.

Will Barton had 16 points for Denver, and the Nuggets ended a five-game trip by winning their second straight after snapping an eight-game skid on Thursday night.

“I can’t imagine flying back tonight with a loss,” Gallinari said.

It looked like the Nuggets were headed that way when they let Philadelphia shoot 60 percent from the field and 64.3 percent from 3-point range on the way to a 59-52 halftime lead.

“I ripped our guys at halftime,” Nuggets coach Mike Malone said. “Hated our effort, hated our defense. Just not ready to play, for whatever reason. To our credit, in the fourth quarter we finally got our defense in the game.”

They also got their offense in gear — especially during the final minutes.

The Nuggets trailed for the entire second half before Jameer Nelson tied it at 102 with 1:26 remaining with a 19-foot step-back jumper. After Canaan missed a drive on the 76ers’ ensuing possession, Nelson went baseline and set up Gallinari for an easy dunk to make it 104-102 with 47.9 seconds remaining.