ORLANDO, Fla. — By the time Jamal Murray walked to the free-throw line with 5.1 seconds left in Denver’s 91-87 victory over the Magic on Saturday night, the hard parts were over for the 22-year-old Nuggets point guard.
The countless hours spent sharpening a routine built over more than 15 years made clear what would happen with the game on the line. Two shots against a raucous crowd dropped through the bottom of the net, and a losing streak that seemed heavier than two games was over.
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The real heavy lifting for Murray had begun more than 48 hours earlier, inside a despondent visiting locker room in New Orleans following a blowout loss to the Pelicans. The young point guard looked his teammates in the eyes and raised his voice, delivering an organic speech that resonated with a group of players collectively trying to shake an early-season malaise.
Murray declined to delve into the details of how he spoke in that charged room, but the spirit of his message was that the Nuggets needed to realize they can’t ease into their season.
“I’m not going to repeat my message, but just said we need to bring a lot more effort,” Murray said. “We need to talk more, bring more energy, especially going into road games. Just try to come out, and if you miss shots, make mistakes on defense, whatever it is, just try to keep the energy high.”
Murray’s dialogue kept churning once the locker room emptied. Nuggets coach Michael Malone said he and his point guard “went back and forth late into the night” as they talked about the need for a greater sense of urgency.
“We’re playing like it’s, you know —” Malone said, stopping himself before landing on a descriptor for what has been a grinding start for the Nuggets. “If we keep playing like that, things are going to get tight down to the end of the season. We don’t have that luxury. Last year is over. We have to come out with great urgency. He came out in New Orleans and spoke those words, and more importantly, he followed up those words.”
That Murray led the Nuggets with 22 points was only part of walking the walk after talking the talk. It wasn’t just that he ended a fourth-quarter drive with a dunk and a primal yell, giving Denver a five-point lead with 35 seconds left. Wasn’t just the free throws to seal it.
For Murray, it was the opening moments that mattered the most. By raising his voice on Halloween night in New Orleans, he had welcomed an added layer of pressure. He had put the onus on himself, especially with co-star Nikola Jokic struggling, to lift the Nuggets out of their funk.
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“You just never know how guys are going to respond,” veteran Paul Millsap said. “Are (they) saying it just to say it or saying it to back it up? Me knowing who he is, I knew when he said it what he was about.”
All Murray did, with the eyes of his entire team focused on him, was score 10 of Denver’s 17 first-quarter points. Jokic, who ultimately ended up with 20 points, didn’t attempt a shot during his first stint on the court, a stretch that lasted more than eight minutes.
With the Nuggets unable to find any kind of spark, Murray lit the fuse himself. He buried a floating jumper. Moments later, he canned a stepback 3-pointer. He drove hard to the rim and drew a foul. He banged home another 3-pointer.
“He spoke to the team and said we needed to bring it, and then he set the tone,” said Torrey Craig, who helped spark a run with a key steal in the second half. “When he’s like that, we are definitely a better team.”
Even when Murray sat Saturday night, he kept working. He stood just behind Malone during timeouts while he wasn’t in the game. At the start of the fourth quarter, he quickly pulled Jerami Grant aside to point out something he had seen with Orlando’s offense.
For much of the game, Murray had been picking up Orlando point guard D.J. Augustin in the backcourt, forcing him to work just a little extra to get the Magic into their offense. So when Murray would exit the game, he offered his replacement, Monte Morris, a challenge.
“When I got in the game, he got on me, told me to pick up D.J. full court,” Morris said. “Just him getting on me, it helped me take my game and pick my stuff up, too.”
Following his fellow point guard’s lead, Morris discovered his best stretch of the season early in the fourth quarter. He nailed a 3-pointer in the corner to push Denver’s lead to five points. On the next Nuggets possession, following a Magic turnover, Morris drove to the middle as he came around a screen and buried a 10-foot folder.
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Then, as Al-Farouq Aminu burned down the floor in transition two possessions later, aiming to get to the rim and cut the lead back to three points, Morris put himself right in front of the Eurostep he knew was coming from the lanky forward.
“We done played him like 15 times in Portland,” Morris said with a chuckle, reminiscing on the playoff series last spring when Aminu played for the Trail Blazers. “You kind of know guys’ go-to moves. He did it earlier on me, so I knew in transition that if I met him early, he wasn’t going to be able to get to the basket. I knew he likes to go to that Eurostep, so I just timed it up.”
Murray exploded off the bench once Morris drew the charge, the rest of his teammates, including Jokic, following the lead.
“I felt our energy tonight, even the guys on the bench,” Malone said. “I didn’t feel that in New Orleans. We had an engaged team tonight.”
The final six minutes of the fourth quarter had an old familiarity for the Nuggets. Jokic, who was brilliant in the second half after a passive start, and Murray, playing their two-man game, trading big buckets, feeding off the momentum and opportunities one created for the other.
Malone met with Jokic Saturday morning and implored his center to be more aggressive.
“I said, ‘I can’t have you shoot six times,’” Malone told Jokic. “‘You’re way too important and way too talented. He got 14 shots up tonight and hit some big, big baskets for us.”
Murray made it clear after the game he had an appreciation for how Jokic bounced back Saturday, another nod to his growth in reading and supporting his teammates.
“It’s great for him to shoot the ball; it’s always happy,” Murray said with a chuckle. “He got it done. Like I said, he puts pressure on opposing teams when he’s shooting. It just opens up the whole paint, makes Paul have an easier mismatch on rebounds. That means the guards come in and there are more driving opportunities. His aggressiveness just opens up driving lanes for everybody.”
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The grind-it-out win over the Magic certainly doesn’t mean the Nuggets have solved all the problems affixed to their 4-2 start. After hitting just 37 percent of their shots Saturday (27-of-73), the Nuggets are now shooting 41.8 percent on the season, fourth-worst in the league. They haven’t come close to hoisting the 37 looks from 3-point range Malone mentioned at media day as a per-game goal this season, and a number of players — notably Malik Beasley, who went 1-of-8 against Orlando — are still fighting nagging slumps. And Jokic has put together maybe one complete game all season.
But the 1-1 road trip offered a valuable truth for the Nuggets, one they will continue to rely on as they fight to find smoother waters.
Their 22-year-old point guard is ready to raise his voice.
“I think it’s big-time,” Morris said. “If he’s gonna be our starting point guard, everybody’s going to look for him to lead us.”
(Photo of Murray, center, withMillsap: Fernando Medina / NBAE via Getty Images)
Nick Kosmider is a staff writer for The Athletic covering the Denver Broncos. He previously covered the Denver Nuggets for The Athletic after spending five years at the Denver Post, where he covered the city’s professional sports scene. His other stops include The Arizona Republic and MLB.com. Follow Nick on Twitter @NickKosmider
