Is Jamal Murray less, equal or more valuable to the Nuggets than Nikola Jokic?

Considering Jamal Murray's performance for the Denver Nuggets in this year's postseason, is he more valuable than Nikola Jokic?

For the second straight game, the Denver Nuggets’ season looked as if it was in jeopardy.

After building an early lead and threatening to run away in Game 6 of their first round series against the Utah Jazz, Donovan Mitchell was leading the sixth-seeded Jazz to a furious comeback in the second half.

But for the second straight game, Jamal Murray made sure that it wouldn’t happen.

For the second time in the series, Murray reached the half century mark to help the third-seeded Nuggets fend of the Jazz, scoring 50 points and adding five rebounds, and six assists to help his team to a 119-107 victory to force a sudden death Game 7 in their series, making it the only first round series of the 2020 NBA playoffs to go the full distance.

Murray’s 50-point performance comes on the heels of a 42-point, 8-rebound, 8-assist effort in Game 5, also a win by Denver, and a 50-point, 11-board, 7-assist performance in a losing effort in Game 4. The 23-year-old former Kentucky Wildcat joined Mitchell, Jerry West, Allen Iverson, Wilt Chamberlain, and Michael Jordan as the only players with multiple 50-point games in the playoffs. And if the last couple of games were any indication, Murray is far from done.

But that’s not to say that Nuggets main man Nikola Jokic had an off-game in Game 6, as the 25-year old Serbian finished with 22 points, 4 rebounds, 9 assists, and 3 steals in the win.

It’s just that Murray clearly has the hot hand right now, and the entire team is riding it and hoping it would be enough to carry them out of the first round.

Murray has far and away been Denver’s best player in the first round series against the Jazz, averaging 34.0 points, 6.2 rebounds, and 6.7 assists in six games while making 59% of his shots. Jokic, meanwhile, has normed just 25.7 points on 51% shooting to go with 7.2 rebounds and 5.7 assists in the series. The Joker has had steady numbers in the series as he continues to go up against Jazz center and two-time Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert, but it is Murray’s white-hot shooting and scoring duels with Mitchell that has drawn the attention of basketball fans.

Jokic is still the Nuggets current franchise player, a big man with passing skills unparalleled for his size who can score from almost anywhere on the court and stretch defenses with his three-point shooting. It is this unique skill set that earned him two All -Star appearances so far and even a fourth place finish in last year’s Most Valuable Player race. It is his emergence as a star in the league that earned him the trust of Denver’s front office to build a team and an all-world offense around him to maximize his talents.

Murray is part of that dynamic offense and was supposed to complement Jokic’s skills. But he has shown in this first round series that he is a star in his own right. The 23-year old Canadian has actually served as a good barometer for Denver’s success in the series, averaging a scorching 42.7 points on 47-of-70 (67%) shooting in their wins and just 25.3 points on 29-of-60 (48%) in their losses. It’s no coincidence that his two worst performances in the series, a 12-point effort on 5-of-16 shooting in Game 3 and a paltry 14 points on 6-of-14 shooting in Game 2, also resulted in losses for the Nuggets.

Jokic, for his part, has averaged 27.3 points on 30-of-55 (55%) shooting in Denver’s three wins, while scoring just 24.0 points on a lower 28-of-58 (48%) shooting clip in their three losses. While the Serbian’s numbers also take a dip in their losses, Murray’s scoring is clearly more indicative of the team’s success against the Jazz. Once he gets it going, as he did in Game 6, there is little that Utah’s defense can do to stop him, and it usually results into a win for the third-seeded Nuggets.

Denver still hasn’t completed its comeback from a 3-1 series deficit against the Jazz, as the teams are still set to play a win-or-go-home Game 7. And while Jokic remains the team’s cornerstone, having won more awards and being a more proven and established player than his younger co-star, Murray has shown that he is more important to their success against the Jazz. For their team to continue their playoff run this year and avoid an early exit, they need more from their red-hot shooter than they do from their facilitating big man in the all-important Game 7.