Rising temperatures in Denver were traced to Nuggets guard Jamal Murray on Wednesday.
Temps reached highs of 89 degrees and remained above 70 after sunset as Murray surpassed 25 points in the first half at Ball Arena. Miming as if he had suffered a burn on his right hand, he gleefully invited a sellout crowd to egg him on. Nuggets fans didn’t want to see anyone else shoot it. He was riding a heat wave. He made another 3-pointer before the visiting Mavericks started hard-doubling him at midcourt.
“Having the crowd yell at you like that, yell back and just all the energy in the arena, that’s what we want,” he said. “That’s when we’re at our best, when the fans are into it and they know what’s about to happen, or they see what’s coming, and then it happens. It’s just a really fun moment. Nothing can stop you in that moment.”
Murray scored 33 points before halftime — including Denver’s last 13 — and finished the game with a season-best 53 to lead the Nuggets to their fourth consecutive win, 142-135 over Dallas. The All-Star point guard shot 19 for 28 in his second 50-point game this season and his 21st with 30 or more. Denver (46-28) improved to 11-0 in his regular-season career when he scores 40, including 5-0 this year.
And yet it might not have even been the most impressive individual performance of the night.
When the Mavericks blitzed Murray’s pick-and-rolls more aggressively in the second half, he and his partner obliged with pristine ball movement. Nikola Jokic amassed 19 assists, matching the second-highest total of his career and bringing his combined assist count to 36 in a span of 24 hours.
“Outrageous numbers from the best tandem in the NBA,” coach David Adelman said.
This was the second game of a back-to-back for the Nuggets, who tipped off at 9:13 p.m. MT the previous night in Phoenix. After beating the Suns, their postgame flight home landed just past 3 a.m. Wednesday. Jokic registered his 29th and 30th triple-doubles of the season in the two wins. He secured both early in the third quarter.
“We should talk about him, too,” Murray said — a rebellious comment indicative of how the duo has sustained its synergy for a decade.
This was their 400th win together, including playoff games. That’s the most by any pair of teammates in the NBA since the start of the 2016-17 season.
“It’s the growth, how we both started and the path that we had basically from nobody to somebody, and to championship,” Jokic said. “And still growing and still performing. The growth that we had together is something that is really unique.”
Jokic’s final stat line read 23-17-17 on Tuesday in Phoenix. It read 23-21-19 on Wednesday in Denver. The Serbian center already owns the only 30-20-20 line in NBA history. He finished the win over Dallas just one assist shy of the fourth 20-20-20. He committed only one turnover.
“He might have a 10-turnover game,” Murray said, “but you take it with these kinds of nights, how much he’s able to orchestrate the offense.”
The duo now has three games in which Murray has scored 50 while Jokic has accompanied him with a triple-double.
“It’s not just when we’re playing well. I feel like our best chemistry is when we’re not,” Murray said. “Sometimes he’s having a rough day and I’ll pick up the slack. And then there’s days when I’m not doing what I need to do, and he takes over. Those days where we’re both on point, it’s just whatever’s open. There’s no tug-of-war with the ball. There’s no animosity of who’s shooting it, where it’s going. It’s just a lot of fun to play like that. I think that’s super underrated in just the game of basketball and teaching the kids. … It’s just fun to play this pure brand of basketball. Whether we miss or make shots, it’s just fun to play.”
Murray didn’t force anything when the Mavericks were most aggressive with him. He didn’t attempt a shot for the first six minutes of the second half. He collected hockey assists instead, passing out of double-teams to an unusually open Jokic, who then drew in help defenders and sprayed the ball out to the perimeter. The Nuggets were in complete command offensively. They recorded an assist on 36 of their 50 made shots. A third-quarter run ended with Jokic going behind the back to Peyton Watson for a dunk.
The absence of defense allowed the tanking Mavericks to stay within striking distance most of the game. Rookie sensation Cooper Flagg led them with 26 points, eight rebounds and seven assists. But when they pulled within one late in the fourth, Murray answered with one last bombardment of buckets.
“They really are the history book of this franchise,” Adelman said, “when it comes to the longevity together and then also the playoffs, and all these wars they’ve been through. … In the moment right now, I think they’re just going through their careers and they really appreciate each other. But it’s gonna be really cool when this thing is over and we look back at what these two guys have done together. We’re very lucky in this city to have these two people playing for our basketball team, representing Denver in general.”