With 21-of-50 points, 8-of-10 three-pointers, no free throws, and six rebounds, two assists and two steals, Jamal Murray became the first player in league history to score 50 points without a free throw.
Such an explosive Murray, the Nuggets are too much need. At the beginning of the season, the Nuggets once fell out of the playoffs and slowly came back, but the current record is still not good, ranking seventh in the West.
Because the Nuggets' goal difference has always been better than their record, I'm not too worried. But although the key ball has a luck component, Murray's more accurate can make Jokic's pressure lighter.
Last season in the playoffs, we saw a brand new version of Murray, with 26.5 points, 6.6 assists, 50.5% shooting and 45.3 three-point shooting, and super scoring explosiveness made the Nuggets more threatening in key moments. We look forward to his continuation of this performance into the next season."
As a result, Murray went back, but back to the level of last season's regular season, a mediocre secondary attacker. This season, Murray's average score per game is a career-high 19.4 points due to a slight increase in playing time, but the performance per unit time is even slightly inferior to last season's regular season.
As a small projection guard, he couldn't make more than three points, and he didn't pay much attention to the distribution of shots, which caused his efficiency to hover on the average line.
Because of Jokic's presence, Murray assumed the role of a deputy attacker, and as a defender, he held the ball to block the most rounds in the team, but the efficiency was not good. In terms of passing performance alone, Monte Morris is clearly the better player.
But wanting to go further, a mediocre Murray, is clearly not what the Nuggets want.
Jokic's poor defensive frame as a center doomed the Nuggets not to be a defensive powerhouse. But Jokic has a sneaky hand to pick up the ball, plus the ability to protect rebounds, and he's not a bad defensive player. This season, in order to protect the attack, Malone used more three guards, and Murray sometimes needed to top the third position.
Coupled with the use of Green in the rotation of centers, it is basically a declaration of abandonment of defense. But it provides better offensive space and better projection support.
Since he wants to go offensive, he needs Murray to come up with a better offensive performance. The impression is that Murray is a shooter, but in fact, his highest season three points are less than 38%.
He has to improve on that, especially with the Nuggets' complicated cover tactics of using Jokic as a shaft, and Murray's no-ball cover scoring rate of 0.68 is completely not enough to see, it's time to improve.
This season he shot just 35.9 percent of his three-pointers and 35.4 percent of his three-pointers. There are less than 30% of the three points under the sticker defense, and only 36% of the three points in the big open position. The projection performance of the team's first ball carrier in the backcourt is not enough.
What excuses Murray is that he has been plagued by injuries and is not fully healthy. In his last four games, Murray averaged 26.8 points, 6.5 rebounds and 5.3 assists per game, shooting 49.3 percent from the field and 41 percent from three-point range.
Jokic has unparalleled passing skills and incredible mid-range hand work, averaging 27.4 points, 111 rebounds and 8.6 assists per game.
The shooting percentage is close to 80% under the basket, more than 50% in the middle range area, and 40% in three-point shooting. He needed the support of his teammates so that he wouldn't look like a tired Serbian boy in the elbow zone every game.
Compared to Serbian delicacies such as cakes and stewed fish prepared by the Nuggets for Jokic after the game, Murray's recovery may be a better birthday gift.