Jamal Murray isn’t known for being an elite scorer nor an elite shooter, but on Wednesday night, he was both. The Denver Nuggets guard did his best Stephen Curry impression with a ridiculous, scathing performance from distance en route to the eighth 50-ball an NBA player has had this season. It was a career night amid a true All-Star push for the veteran guard.
Jamal Murray sets career highs with impressive shooting night
Only two of the eight 50-point performances this year have come with fewer minutes played. Jamal Murray had 52 in 36 minutes, whereas James Harden unfathomably dropped 55 on the Charlotte Hornets in just 35 minutes of action. Nuggets teammate Nikola Jokic had 55 in 34 minutes as well, but otherwise, everyone else had to play a lot more than that.
This is the third 50-point game a Nuggets player has had. Aaron Gordon had one on October 23. Jokic’s outstanding performance came on November 12, and now Murray’s on December 3. At this rate, the team will have someone explode like this every month.
What stands out most about Murray’s insane stat line is that he was 10/11 on threes. He was unconscious from deep, shooting better than he really ever has. Ironically, Gordon’s 50-point game involved 10 of 11 threes as well. In all three Denver instances, the players shot an unreal percentage from the floor. Murray’s 76% field goal percentage is third among all 50-point games this year, with Jokic (78.3%) and Gordon (81%) ranking ahead of him.
This came two nights after Murray suffered a sprained ankle. He was questionable at tip-off, but he went on to have a career night, adding four assists and six rebounds. “It felt pretty good, honestly,” he said. “We did a lot of treatment going into the game today, and it felt good. Maybe a little sore at the end of the first quarter, but it was nothing I couldn’t handle.”
As for his hot night, he revealed that his mindset was to just keep getting shots up. “Keep shooting,” Murray said about how he felt during the game per ESPN. “You’ve been doing this so long, there’s no need to oversimplify. Just playing, having fun, playing, having fun.”
Ironically, Murray says it wasn’t the offense that really led to his career night. “For me, the defense fuels the offense,” he added. “I know when we’re in half court, we execute well, we share the ball. We’re unselfish, we cut, we move, make shots. I think the difference with us is when we play defense, we can add to that and, on the other hand, stop the other team from scoring.”
At one point, Murray was scoring really well, but it looked like a blowout in which he would sit down the stretch. 50 seemed improbable. The Indiana Pacers, however, turned it up and made it a little more competitive, so Murray got to keep going and ended up with his career night.
Interestingly enough, Murray did this without getting much help at the free-throw line. He attempted just five free throws, making four of them. It helps to have 30 points from made threes, but Murray didn’t get inflated by the charity stripe. It’s the fewest FTs in a 50-point game all year, so Murray did it the ethical way. His true-shooting percentage was 95.6%, second only to Gordon, who had an unfathomable 105.8% true shooting. Murray was +23, the third-best plus/minus in a 50-point game this year.
This was Murray’s second career game with at least 50 points, 75% shooting, and fewer than two turnovers (he had just one). Since individual turnovers were first tracked in 1977, the rest of the entire NBA has combined for two games meeting those parameters, one from Michael Jordan and one from Dominique Wilkins.
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