Everyone who has followed Jamal Murray’s basketball career knows that he plays with a heightened level of intensity that few players posses. Every game, every quarter, every possession, and every second, Murray is flying around and playing with a borderline psychotic level of aggression.
“He knows he is a killer,” Juancho Hernangomez explained after the Denver Nuggets 115-107 win over the Boston Celtics. “When he smells blood, he goes in to kill them.”
That intensity and aggression within Murray’s play style manifested itself into one incredulous 48-point performance against the Celtics and, even more importantly, it provided the Nuggets with an edge that has not existed since Carmelo Anthony was still playing professional basketball in the Mile High City.
“Tonight, he had one of those nights,” Nuggets head coach Michael Malone explained. “Jamal had just an incredible evening.”
Simply stated, the Nuggets have been searching for their own aggressor for the better part of a decade. Denver needs someone who enjoys ruffling feathers and asserting their dominance on the opposition. Every great team has one of those types of personalities. The Warriors have Draymond Green. The Houston Rockets have P.J. Tucker and Chris Paul. The Celtics have Marcus Smart. For Denver, it seems that Murray may be that player.
“It was just a fun game and my emotions took over,” Murray explained after his offensive explosion. “I was looking for that ball each time down the court. It was just my emotions taking over. That is how I get sometimes when I get going.”
Murray was asserting himself as the aggressor from the very start of Denver’s victory over Boston. Murray had the Nuggets first ten points of the game capped off by this pump-fake floater in isolation that made Celtics’ wing Jaylen Brown look foolish.
While the shot is impressive — and requires quite a bit of confidence — that is not the most important aspect of the play. Watch what Murray does after seeing his shot fall. He does not simply turn around and get back on defense. Instead, Murray makes sure that he says a few words to Brown first and foremost. Murray made sure he talked some smack before continuing on down the court.
That was only about five minutes into the game. That is being the aggressor. That is asserting his dominance.
“I just don’t even remember,” Murray said when asked about to explain what he felt like throughout his amazing performance. “I don’t know. I don’t even have words for that stuff. I just had no conscious. I really didn’t care at that point.”
Murray’s aggression put him in some sort of trance-like state. He was effortlessly dismantling the best defense in the entire National Basketball Association and, once ‘M-V-P’ chants began to rain down from the rafters, Murray was so dialed into the game that he did not even hear the crowd raining down praise upon him.
“I was locked in. I did not even hear them,” Murray explained in front of his locker after the best scoring performance of his young NBA career. “I was just focused on calling the play and scoring a bucket. It was cool, man. It is a great feeling. That was the first time I ever got (M-V-P chants) and hopefully there are plenty more.”
It is almost as if that aggression-based mental unconsciousness is where Murray is at his best and also where he is most comfortable. When he was in huddles with his teammates, Murray was so deeply fixated on the task at hand — and nothing more — that he was virtually silent.
“He doesn’t say anything,” Hernangomez explained when asked about what Murray was like in huddles during this 48-point outburst. “You just see the fire in his eyes and you just pass him the ball and get out. He started making shots and he won the game for us.
“When Jamal is hot, you just need to pass him the ball and get away from him.”
That is exactly what the rest of the Nuggets roster did. They handed Murray the ball and he went to work. His determination was too much to handle for the Celtics on Monday night and there is no better way to showcase that aggression than this play in the latter portion of the fourth quarter.
Murray getting that layup to fall was sheer will power and aggression. Murray out-jumped Marcus Smart for the inbounds pass, attacked the paint with complete disregard for his own safety, outran Brown to the rim, and physically overpowered Irving for the layup before Jayson Tatum could rotate over to slow him.
“Even when they turned up the pressure, he found ways to get to the rim,” Malone explained in his postgame press conference. “He hit some incredibly difficult shots. He was in a zone tonight.”
Gary Harris, Murray backcourt partner in the starting lineup, had a similar thought when watching the young Canadian-born point guard score in seemingly everyday imaginable.
“Being out there it was like, ‘hey Jamal, do what you gotta do’,” Harris explained. “Everyone kind of just got out of his way and he took care of the rest.”
While many people enjoyed the performance, the Celtics did not. They actually took quite an issue with Murray antics; specifically, at the end of the game.
Murray was sitting on 48 total points with just over a minute remaining. He had a couple strong opportunities to reach the 50-point threshold, but his shots just would not quite fall.
Then, as the Nuggets were running the rest of the time off of the game clock en route to their ninth victory in 10 tries, Murray jacked up an ill-advised three-point shot that broke many unwritten rules as he continued his quest for 50 points.
“What kind of competitor wouldn’t it bother?” Irving said after the game when asked about Murray unnecessary three-point shot at the buzzer when the Nuggets were up nine points. “I don’t want to make a big deal out of it…congratulations to him on having 48 points…but the ball deserves to go in the crowd after a bullsh*t move like that. So I threw it in the crowd.”
Irving is not kidding. He launched the ball about 20 rows deep once he got his hands on it, but that is important for Denver. The Nuggets need a player who is willing to, again, ruffle feathers. The Nuggets need someone who could not care less about what the opposing team thinks. The Nuggets need a player who gets under the skin of the opponent. Again, Murray looks and plays like he could fit that role nearly to perfection.
“I think my emotions took over like it normally does,” Murray explained when asked about his last-second three-point heave. “When I get going like that — no disrespect to the Boston organization and the Boston fans for the last shot — I just had it in my mind that I was going for 50 (points).”
That bravado and complete lack of sympathy is exactly what the Nuggets locker room needs. Denver has the talent, the cohesion, and the schemes to win basketball games on a regular basis. Now, they are developing a sizable chip on their shoulder that is motivating them more and more with each passing day. This Nuggets team is no longer ok with mediocrity and they want to force the rest of the league to see that they are to be taken seriously.
“I have been here for two years and both years we have missed the playoffs by one game,” Murray explaied. “Now, we are taking every game like it was the Minnesota game. That is the biggest thing, I think. We talked about it before at training camp, but I think everybody has the feeling that if we lose one game now, it can come back to haunt us at the end of the year. I think our focus, whether it is shooting or film, we are just getting better everyday and we have a conscious effort not to lose to anybody and we are going to give our best effort.”
Murray, as well as the rest of the Nuggets roster, have been giving their best effort and it has led to their best start in franchise history. That does not mean that Murray is done or is letting off of the gas. Actually, it means quite the opposite.
Now, Murray is awaiting his next victim.
“Who else do we have to go though? What else do I gotta do?” Murray asked the media. “We have done some great stuff, but we haven’t accomplished anything, though. We just gotta take it one game at a time like we have been, keep trusting each other, and we’ll get the job done.”