Strike 1: It’s a pretty good guess that Jamal Murray doesn’t want Nikola Jokic to win another NBA Most Valuable Player award.

Not that there’s any bad blood between the Denver Nuggets’ two most accomplished players. It’s just that Murray knows what the rest of us can plainly see: Having Joker carry the load doesn’t translate into winning championships. Been that way for four and a half seasons now.

Every season Joker has won the regular season MVP has ended with the Nuggets making an early playoff exit. The one season in the last four he didn’t win it, his team did.

Jokic needs a reliable sidekick, not another regular season award.

So it’s among the world’s worst kept secrets that the Nuggets need to get Murray to return to playing at an all-star level if the team has any hope of returning to the top of the Western Conference. Since signing his four-year $207.85 million maximum contract extension in September, Murray has struggled. He’s had trouble staying healthy and his offensive game has been well below par. He’s looked nothing like “Playoff Jamal.” At least until Monday night in Sacramento.

With many of his teammates – including Jokic – scuffling on both ends of the court against the hot shooting Sacramento Kings, Murray finally looked like “Playoff Jamal,” finding his AWOL jumper and scoring 15 fourth quarter points, including hitting the game winner, in Denver’s improbable 130-129 road win. He finished with a team high 28. Joker was held to 20.

Will this be the Jamal we see moving forward? Nuggets Nation needs to know.

There’s no doubt Murray has heard the rumblings. Should the Nuggets try to trade him? Is he healthy and in basketball shape? Did it hurt him to represent his native Canada in last summer’s Olympics when he could have been resting and healing? Is he really worth all that money?

If he hasn’t heard any of it, it’s only because he’s been able to magically tune it out.

Murray is a prideful man with a terrific resumé. You just hope when he finally finds his stride and can be consistently dangerous once again, he’s doing it in a Nuggets uniform.

Let’s face it, Denver is a much better team when Joker isn’t scoring a ridiculous 104 points in two games, including a career-high 56 in an inexplicable loss to lowly Washington. They’re better when Joker is equal parts scorer and facilitator, like when he scored just 16 points on only nine shots in a big home win over the Los Angeles Clippers. He followed that up with that modest 20 point night on 18 shots – with 11 assists – in the harrowing one point win in Sacramento. It was Jamal’s show late.

There’s been – and will likely continue to be – a lot of chatter about the Nuggets still needing to make a trade. They desperately need someone to back up Joker and provide at least a little bit of rim protection and scoring when the big Serbian isn’t on the floor. The young bench still isn’t “postseason trustworthy” and the free agent they signed to do that job, Dario Saric, hasn’t been seen in weeks.

But if Murray can keep playing like he did in the fourth quarter Monday night, some of that problem will be solved, and Denver won’t be approaching the trade deadline in any sort of desperate state.

When Murray is being “Playoff Jamal,” Joker can go back to playing like he wants to. And that’s when Denver is at its best.