LeBron? Don’t care.
CJ McCollum and Zion? Don’t care. SGA? Don’t care. Tim Connelly and his Walloping Wolves? Don’t care.
Charles Barkley? Don’t care. Kendrick Perkins? Sooooo don’t care.
Two words: Jamal Murray.
If he’s great, or even just very, very good, nothing else matters when it comes to this Nuggets postseason. Nothing.
Not matchups. Not histories. Not demons. Not grudges. Not the noise.
For Denver, the No. 1 seed who’ll inevitably be treated as a plucky inconvenience by a coastal NBA media machine who’d rather be hanging with King James, Kevin Durant or Steph Curry when the ratings come rolling in, this is the money stat:
The Nuggets are 14-6 (.700) in postseason games since 2018 whenever Murray scores 20 points or more. They’re 2-11 (.154) when he doesn’t.
That’s the kind of whopping, Jekyll-and-Hyde split that the Rockies usually put up when comparing their statistics at Coors Field to everywhere else on the planet. Cripes, the Nuggets are 8-4 (.667) when Murray goes for 25 points or more, 8-13 (.381) when he doesn’t.
“We’re a team to beat,” Murray shrewdly noted back in January after the Oklahoma City Thunder ended Denver’s nine-game winning streak. “We’ve got a target on our back.”
And the one riding the Blue Arrow’s back this month just might be the biggest target of them all.
Sunday’s postseason opener will mark a gap of almost four years since Murray appeared in a postseason game at Ball Arena — Game 7 of the Western semis, back on May 12, 2019. The Blue Arrow hasn’t graced a playoff game, period, since Game 5 of the 2020 Western finals in Orlando on Sept. 26, 2020.
But the man was marvelous in between, netting at least 27 points down at the NBA’s pandemic bubble eight times, including a pair of 50-point outbursts against Utah in the first round that rallied the Nuggets from a 3-1 series deficit.
Denver would win six of those eight Murray playoff games of 27 points or more. Without No. 27, the Nuggets went 5-10 (.333) in the 15 postseason games that followed.
Spring is for shooters, especially when your defense is as mercurial as the temperatures along Chopper Circle in March. The Nuggets finished the regular season ranked fifth among NBA teams in offensive efficiency and tied for 15th in defensive efficiency, according to Basketball-Reference.com. Since 2003, only one playoff team — the 2017-18 Warriors — has gone on to win an NBA title with a defense that ranked outside the league’s top 10. And Golden State ranked 11th.
Precedents aside, the 2023 playoff bracket is a golden opportunity for coach Michael Malone to silence his local doubters and for Jokic to stick it to the national haters.
But not even Joker has moved the Nuggets’ postseason needle, historically, the way Murray has. Denver is 21-27 in Jokic’s 48 postseason appearances. And the splits haven’t swung all that much: They’re 13-16 (.448) when he nets 24 points or more, 8-11 (.421) when he doesn’t; 10-14 (.417) when he shoots it 20 times or more, 11-13 (.458) when he doesn’t.
The two-time MVP needs help once the stakes start ratcheting up. He needs a wingman to find, a shooter to feed, a complement that stretches defenses and unclogs the paint.
Since 2018, the Nuggets are 11-4 (.733) in postseason games during which Murray makes three treys or more. They’re 5-13 (.278) when it’s two or less. They’re 7-2 (.778) when he drains four or more triples in a playoff tilt.
Jokic is the rock. Michael Porter Jr. is the ‘X’ factor. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is the pest. Aaron Gordon is the bonus.
The Arrow is the bar.
The yardstick. The benchmark. The barometer. This postseason dance will go as Murray goes, for better or for worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, ‘til depth do us part.
Want more sports news? Sign up for the Sports Omelette to get all our analysis on Denver’s teams.
