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Tim MacMahon, ESPN writer
DALLAS — After Jamal Murray’s best offensive performance of the season, Denver Nuggets coach Michael Malone defended his star point guard, who certainly struggled to start the season.
“I think the microscope on Jamal is a little intense,” Malone said after Murray scored a season-high 45 points Tuesday night to lead the Nuggets to a 118-99 victory over the Dallas Mavericks. . “Everyone has to let the kid breathe a little bit. He’s not perfect. And if you look at it, I think his overall stats up until recently have been very good for us.”
Murray was sensational from the first goal on Tuesday night, scoring 19 points on 7-of-9 shooting in the first quarter. The Nuggets’ typical rotation has Murray resting midway through the first quarter, but he made sure that wasn’t the case by feeling like he was in a rhythm.
“Don’t take me out,” Murray told Malone a couple of times early in the game, both after he hit 3-pointers.
Malone happily granted that request, allowing Murray to play the entire quarter. Murray finished the first half with 32 points, two shy of his previous season high on 12-of-15 shooting.
“You’re just in the zone and it’s fun,” said Murray, who finished 18 of 26 from the field and 5 of 9 on 3-pointers while outscoring Dallas’ starting lineup by a 45-39 margin. “Your team knows you’re in the zone. They’re trying to find you too. The ball has energy and it was finding me today and I was just rolling, so I wasn’t looking at it too much. I just flow with the game and play free.
“If I miss a shot or lose it, it’s on to the next play. And it’s good to play with a free mentality, you know what I’m saying? Sometimes you can have so many negatives in the game that it just compounds from one player to the next.” “And today it was the opposite.”
As far as Malone is concerned, there has been too much negativity this season regarding Murray, who signed a four-year, $208 million max contract extension during the offseason.
The Nuggets signed Murray, one of the stars of the franchise’s only NBA title in 2023, to the maximum contract even though he played poorly by their standards in last season’s playoffs and for Team Canada in the Olympic Games during the summer. He is averaging 19.8 points on 44.7% shooting this season, his lowest scoring average since 2019-20 and his lowest field goal percentage since 2018-19.
“I think Jamal has been getting a lot of attention this year,” Malone said. “Jamal Murray didn’t pay himself $[52] million [per season]. We did it as an organization because we believe in it.
“We didn’t win our first franchise championship without Jamal Murray averaging 21, 10, and 6. You know what I mean? So I understand that everyone wants our guys to play perfect. Everyone wants us to be undefeated. It doesn’t happen like that. “All players go through ups and downs. “The most important thing for Jamal is to know that everyone in the locker room (coaches, players) supports him and we are going to accompany him.”
Murray, who averaged 17.8 points on 42% shooting as the Nuggets stumbled to an 11-10 start, said he thought he deserved the criticism “to some extent.”
“This comes with responsibilities,” Murray said. “I’m totally ready for it. That’s literally why I signed up… I admit I haven’t been playing well, so it’s not a surprise for me to hear everyone else say that too.”
But Malone insisted that the fifth 40-point game of Murray’s career should be characterized as the continuation of an outstanding streak, not an outlier performance.
Malone highlighted Murray’s production during Denver’s winning streak of 13 in its last 18 games. Murray averaged 21.9 points and shot 47.3% from the field and 43.3% from 3-point range during that span.
“I have had his back and I will always have his back,” Malone said. “It was very gratifying to see him have the night he had tonight and how excited his teammates were for him to go out and score 45 in a very efficient manner.
“It wasn’t just a great game tonight. Jamal Murray has played very good basketball for us the last 18 games. It’s not a small sample size, and we just have to keep him going in the right direction.”
