Westbrook has 'perfect' triple-double, 0 turnovers in Nuggets' 132-121 win over Jazz

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Russell Westbrook became the second player in NBA history to have a triple-double with zero turnovers and shoot 100% from the field and the free-throw line in the Denver Nuggets' 132-121 win over the Utah Jazz on Monday night.

Westbrook finished with 16 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists. He shot 7 for 7 from the field and 2 for 2 from the free-throw line to join Domantas Sabonis in the history books.

Nikola Jokic also had a triple-double with 36 points, 22 rebounds and 11 assists, and Jamal Murray had 10 assists to go along with 20 points.

Jordan Clarkson scored 24, and Collin Sexton had 22 for the Jazz.

Utah led 66-64 at the break, but Denver outscored the Jazz 34-23 in the third to build some separation.

Both teams were missing a starting forward. Denver's Aaron Gordon sat out with a right calf strain and Utah's John Collins missed his fourth straight game with a hip bruise.

Nuggets: Denver struggled again when Jokic was on the bench. Once he returned in the fourth quarter, he immediately hit a 3-pointer and found Westbrook for a dunk and his 10th assist a couple minutes later.

Jazz: Utah played four rookies — Kyle Filipowski, Isaiah Collier, Brice Sensabaugh and Cody Williams — with Clarkson for a key stretch in the fourth quarter and actually cut the Denver's lead to 109-107 on Filipowski's three-point play with 7:28 remaining.

Westbrook stole the ball from Sexton and dunked it on the other end to give Denver a 126-114 lead with 2:46 remaining.

The Jazz, who commit more turnovers than any team in the league, had 13 turnovers in the second half which led to 14 Denver points. Utah only had three in the first half.

The Jazz are at New York and the Nuggets host Atlanta on Wednesday.

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Denver Nuggets forward Michael Porter Jr. (1) looks to shoot as Utah Jazz guard Johnny Juzang, left, defends during the first half of an NBA basketball game Monday, Dec. 30, 2024, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Rick Egan)

Denver Nuggets forward Spencer Jones. Left, tries to get by Utah Jazz forward Kyle Filipowski, right, during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Monday, Dec. 30, 2024, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Rick Egan)

Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic, second from right, shoots as Utah Jazz center Walker Kessler, left, forward Lauri Markkanen, second from left, and forward Brice Sensabaugh (28) defend during the first half of an NBA basketball game Monday, Dec. 30, 2024, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Rick Egan)

Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic, front right, becomes entangled with Utah Jazz forward Lauri Markkanen (23) as Jazz center Walker Kessler, back right, looks on during the first half of an NBA basketball game Monday, Dec. 30, 2024, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Rick Egan)

Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic, top, tosses a pass over his shoulder as Utah Jazz center Walker Kessler (24) defends during the first half of an NBA basketball game Monday, Dec. 30, 2024, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Rick Egan)

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Just days after Tennessee announced it had a new manual for executing death row inmates, the state's top prison officials said they aren't going to release the document to the public.

The Tennessee Department of Correction last week told The Associated Press to file a public records request to obtain a copy of the latest execution manual, known as a protocol. However, the agency this week denied the AP's request, saying it needs to keep the entire document secret to protect the identities of the executioner and other people involved.

The decision to maintain secrecy differs from how the state has handled similar requests in the past, but mirrors efforts across the U.S. to suppress public access surrounding executions, especially after anti-death penalty activists used records to expose problems.

Here's what to know:

The protocol is typically a detailed set of procedures describing how the state executes death row inmates. Tennessee had been operating under a 2018 protocol that included directions on selecting execution team staff and the training they should undergo. It explained how lethal injection drugs should be procured, stored and administered. It gave instructions on the inmate's housing, diet and visitation in the days leading up to execution. It provided directions on how to choose media witnesses.

For lethal injection, the 2018 protocol required a series of three drugs administered in sequence.

The new version unveiled last week requires only a single dose of pentobarbital. But that is all that is known about the revised protocol.

In an email sent Monday, Tennessee correction spokesperson Kayla Hackney told the AP the “protocol is not a public record" and cited a Tennessee statute that makes the identities of the people carrying out executions confidential.

However, that same statute says the existence of confidential information in a record is not a reason to deny access to it, noting that the confidential information should be redacted.

In 2018, Tennessee's correction agency provided a redacted copy of the protocol to an AP reporter over email.

In 2007, a previous version of the protocol was treated as a public record and provided to the AP after former Gov. Phil Bredesen, a Democrat, announced a surprise halt to executions. A reporter's review of that 100-page “Manual of Execution” found a jumble of conflicting instructions that mixed new lethal-injection instructions with those for electrocution.

Executions have been on hold in Tennessee since 2022, when the state admitted it had not been following the 2018 protocol. Among other things, the Correction Department was not consistently testing the execution drugs for potency and purity.

An independent review of the state’s lethal injection practice later found that none of the drugs prepared for the seven inmates executed since 2018 had been fully tested. Later, the state Attorney General’s Office conceded in court that two of the people most responsible for overseeing Tennessee’s lethal injection drugs “incorrectly testified” under oath that officials were testing the chemicals as required.

Executions in the U.S. have remained at historic lows for years, but the small group of states still carrying out the death penalty have only increased the secrecy surrounding the procedures, particularly over how and where the state secures the drugs used for lethal injections.

Many states argue that secrecy is critical to protect the safety of those involved in the execution process. Yet in a 2018 report, the Washington-D.C.-based nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center found that this argument often led to these states refusing to provide information about the qualifications of their execution teams and some courts have criticized such arguments for lack of evidence that more public disclosure would result in threats against prison officials.

Kelley Henry, chief of the federal public defender’s habeas unit that represents many of Tennessee’s death row inmates, described the state's refusal to release the new protocol, given that background, as “mystifying."

“The secrecy, which cloaked the former execution protocol, created a culture of incompetence and lack of accountability,” she said in an email.

FILE - Ricky Bell, warden at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution, gives a tour of the prison's execution chamber in Nashville, Tenn., Oct. 13, 1999. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File)