The last time Jamal Murray took part in the playoffs before his team's first-round matchup with the Minnesota Timberwolves was 2020, when the Denver Nuggets star emerged as one of basketball's most flammable big-game players. Two full years and one torn ACL later, Murray is back on the postseason stage, proving his breakout performance in the Orlando bubble was no fluke of empty gyms of small sample size.
He dropped 40 points and six threes on 22 shots in Denver's Game 2 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves, helping the Nuggets stave off a second-half comeback bid led by Anthony Edwards with tough, timely shot-making that's been somewhat hard to come by for Murray since he returned from injury to begin 2022-23. At the season's most critical juncture, Murray is leveling back up to the player he was before going down midway through the 2021 playoffs.
Just don't tell him he's getting back to the player he used to be. Murray knows his “best” is still yet to come.
“People say, ‘Oh, that's like vintage [Murray],'” he told ESPN's Ohm Youngmisuk of his iconic run in the bubble. “It's like, I haven't even hit my best… I feel like people are making that to be the best that's been seen. And I'm thinking that was just the beginning.”
Nikola Jokic seems to agree.
After basketball's most unstoppable two-man game ran Minnesota ragged on Wednesday, the two-time MVP discussed the all-around development that makes Murray more effective now than he was two years ago.
“I think he is playing now better than in the bubble,” Jokic said. “Yes, maybe he scored a lot more points in [the] bubble or whatever. But I think his energy is much better. His leadership, just being [locked] into the game is much more on a high level.”
Murray's proven it thus far against the Timberwolves. Odds are he continues doing so in Friday's Game 3.
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