For three quarters Thursday night, Jamal Murray was pedestrian.
He short-armed shots he normally buries and bypassed teammates with better looks.
For three quarters, the Lakers’ clever wrinkle — deploying length with Jarred Vanderbilt or LeBron James on him — appeared to work.
When the Lakers double-teamed Nikola Jokic, Murray wasn’t making them pay like the Nuggets needed. But by the fourth quarter of Game 2, having mentally reset, Murray turned into a flamethrower.
He saved 23 of his 37 points for the fourth quarter to help the Nuggets forge a 2-0 lead in this Western Conference Finals and protect Denver’s homecourt advantage. The Nuggets improved to 8-0 in Ball Arena with their 108-103 win, looking and acting like the No. 1 seed they earned throughout a dominant regular season.
As if his scoring wasn’t enough, Murray added 10 boards and five assists to his sterling line.
When he nailed a pull-up jumper with 2:10 left in the third quarter, that bucket served as his portal to a space only a few players will ever know.
“He got a little mid-range pull-up to go in, kind of looked up to the heavens,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said. “That’s all he needs, and after that he’s shooting into a hula hoop.”
Thursday’s outburst was Murray’s fourth time he’s scored at least 20 points in the fourth quarter of a playoff game — the most in the NBA since 1997.
Murray’s first 3-pointer of the fourth came over Dennis Schroder. Having seen one fall, the Nuggets engineered a switch and Murray buried another step-back 3 in the face of Anthony Davis. Ball Arena erupted, unleashing a noise seemingly louder than any other time during Murray’s playoff career.
Barely a minute later, he stared down James and hoisted. With the shot clock winding down on that particular dagger, Murray drained a shot that was all too familiar to him.
“When I was little, I used to count down the seconds off the shot clock and make the shot and talk like Marv Albert and talk like Mike Breen, just the imagination running as a kid,” Murray said. “When you get in that moment and you see your fam in the crowd, see your little brother, see Mike Breen there, all these little reminders, they all pay dividends, and make that moment a little more special, and just kind of lock you back in.
“You don’t want to miss that opportunity, and sometimes reflecting on those moments and remembering how fun it was to do that and be able to not miss the stage.”
After a quiet first half, Murray said he meditated to get his mind right. It’s a practice he’s done for years and was still able to employ in the crucible of the postseason.
“Sometimes I need to settle the hell down and sometimes I need to rile myself up,” he said. “… Tonight I just had to just reset completely. The second-half three that I had, the open one, the wide-open one, I alligator-armed it. It shows me that I’m overthinking it, and there’s no reason for me to overthink an open shot. … It’s all mental practice. I’ve been having bad halves and crazy second halves the rest of my life. I know how to change it, I know what to adjust.”
Malone told him to relax and lock in defensively.
“In the playoffs you can’t be a specialist,” Malone said. “Specialists don’t play in the playoffs.”
Heeding his advice, Murray played bigger than his 6-foot-4 frame. He jumped passing lanes, read sequences and reacted. Malone has always said it was his defense that told him how engaged he was.
Murray finished Game 2 with four steals, including a weakside deflection over James five minutes into the fourth quarter that was indicative of his focus.
“He was special,” said Jokic, who recorded his fourth consecutive triple-double of the playoffs and 13th one of his career. “He won us the game.”
If Jokic is the backbone of the Nuggets, Murray is the emotional heartbeat. His edge, be it clapping in an opponent’s face or working the crowd after a clutch moment, provides far more emotional fuel than anything Jokic ever provides. He wears any and every slight like a proud scar.
“Yeah, the outside noise is the outside noise,” Murray said. “We’re the Denver Nuggets; we’re used to that. Even when we win, they talk about the other team. We beat the Clippers in the bubble, they talk about the other team. Same old, same old. It fuels us a little more and will be sweeter when we win the chip.”
Bring up the bubble at your own peril. Murray’s intent on making more history.
“Yeah, the bubble is what, 2020, and it’s 2023?” he said dismissively. “I’m coming off injury and I’m playing decent.”
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