TORONTO — Jamal Murray was the last starter standing.
Hobbled, maybe, but standing. His right ankle was bothering him, enough to appear on the Nuggets’ injury report the next day. Not enough, though, to stop him from playing Wednesday in Toronto, an hour from where he grew up. He only gets one of these visits to Canada per season. This one was occurring under especially memorable circumstances, for better or worse.
He was the star of the show. And he will be for the next month, as long as he can avoid the injury contagion spreading to every corner of his locker room.
“The training staff is gonna be busy,” he said after Jonas Valanciunas joined the team’s wounded.
With three-time MVP Nikola Jokic on the shelf for the next month — it’ll be his longest stretch without playing in his NBA career — Murray is Denver’s frontman like he’s never been before. Consider it an interesting test of his solo ability to drive offense while he’s on the precipice of making his first career All-Star Game.
But the test started with an unfair disadvantage: Jokic wasn’t the only guy out.
In an almost comically ridiculous plot twist to Murray’s extraordinary season, he has been the team’s only available starter for two consecutive games, entering a Sunday matinee in Brooklyn.
“It sucks. It just adds a whole dynamic to the game, with so many guys out,” Murray said. “You’ve just gotta focus on just bringing energy, playing hard, controlling what you can control, playing together, talking, being a leader. Playing aggressive, playing confident, trying to share that confidence. All those little things kind of go into, obviously, what a team is.”
Murray says his individual focus without Jokic is similar to what it was before — that he needs to keep playing how he’s been playing, “just even better.”
That’s easier said than done when so many variables are removed from Denver’s offensive equation. He suddenly finds himself sharing NBA minutes with younger, end-of-bench players whom he enjoys encouraging behind the scenes — players who are often ignored by defenses.
That means Murray will be constantly under siege, at least until Denver regains Aaron Gordon’s secondary ball-handling and shot creation. The basketball court will be as crowded as Times Square (or Yonge-Dundas Square) on New Year’s Eve from Murray’s vantage point.
“He’s gonna have attention beyond attention all over the floor,” coach David Adelman said. “He’s gonna get doubled and blitzed in pick-and-rolls and all those things. So we have to do things for Jamal. We have to screen to get him open.
“We have to do unselfish things for him, and on the flip side of that, he’s got to keep making the right play, which he has. … When there’s two on you, and there’s an open man, you throw it to your teammate.
“Right now, the version of us that is the Denver Nuggets has to trust each other, and other guys are gonna have to step up and make shots through Jamal Murray.”
He patched together 21 points, seven rebounds and six assists in the first game without Jokic, bringing his season averages to 25.1, 4.5 and 6.9. Despite a relatively inefficient performance for his standard, he led the Nuggets in the plus-minus column. They won his minutes by eight and lost those without him by five in a gutsy 106-103 victory over the Raptors.
Another round of All-Star questioning awaited him afterward in his annual postgame presser with Toronto media.
“Obviously, I’d like to be an All-Star, All-NBA, scoring champ, MVP, NBA champ. I want to be all of it, right? But winning matters,” Murray said. “I think I try to sacrifice and do the little things for this team to win, and if we win the championship and I don’t (make) All-Star, we win the championship, you know what I’m saying? So that’s where my mind is at.”
Therein lies the difficult balance he’ll be attempting to locate in the weeks ahead. Murray needs to make the right basketball play and get off the ball when he encounters a double-team. If the Nuggets can play four-on-three, he needs to facilitate that instead of over-dribbling in traffic.
He also needs to play like a proverbial All-Star for Denver to win a few games during this stretch, and that includes scoring. He needs to be willing to demand the ball and take a lot of shots, even against coverages designed to prevent him from doing so.
“(I’m) not wavering in my aggressiveness, whether I make or miss,” Murray said. “I think the other team knows what they’re gonna get from me, so just staying consistent with that, and however the game unfolds is how it unfolds. Winning is the priority, but just keeping my foot on the gas, not just to go against the other team but also for my team to understand what’s gonna come behind the play (when defenses blitz). We can build this chemistry over the next month or two to get ready for the playoffs.”
Also looming over the conundrum is Murray’s individual mileage. He was already averaging a team-high 35.1 minutes (tied with Jokic) before Jokic got hurt. He played 37.5 minutes in Toronto. Between Denver’s lack of healthy bodies and Murray’s increased burden as the primary shot creator, burnout is a genuine threat.
“It’s my biggest worry,” Adelman said Friday in Cleveland. “I know the guys we have playing tonight are going to play as hard as they possibly can, with great intention. But I have to take care of that guy. And it’s difficult. … It’s a daily conversation with the medical staff, with the front office, making sure we’re doing the best things for him. At the same time, he feels a responsibility to be there for his teammates.”
Beyond Murray, Denver’s next best scorers are likely to be Tim Hardaway Jr. and Peyton Watson as long as four starters (and Valanciunas) remain out. Christian Braun and Gordon will change the dynamic when they return. But even then, Murray will be the team’s offensive engine for a precarious few weeks in the Nuggets’ promising season.
“Losing Nikola, he’s one of the greatest players to ever live,” Adelman said. “Just bottom line.”
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