Nikola Vucevic had 25 points and 15 rebounds, Zach LaVine scored 29 points on 12-of-18 shooting and the Chicago Bulls gave their playoff hopes an unexpected boost with a 117-96 victory against the Western Conference-leading Denver Nuggets on Wednesday night.

It was Vucevic’s 40th double-double of the season, the third-most in the NBA. LaVine is averaging 34.8 points in Chicago’s last four games.

With the win, the Bulls moved within a game of the Washington Wizards for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference with 16 games remaining in the regular season. The victory was just the fourth in the past 13 games for Chicago.

G DeMar DeRozan had 17 points and eight assists.The win was Chicago’s second in a row at Denver, the first time it has done so since the 1996-97 and 1997-98 seasons.

Nuggets: G Jamal Murray made the 804th 3-pointer of his Nuggets career, tying Will Barton for the franchise record. Vlatko Cancar missed his third consecutive game with a sprained right wrist. Cancar is averaging 5.8 points and 2.4 rebounds off the bench for Denver this season. Nuggets coach Michael Malone remains one win shy of his 400th.

“We’ve got a stretch of games that we need to win to get to where we want,” Bulls forward Patrick Williams said. “I think it was good to kind of show ourselves that, but also show other teams that we’re here.”