With just over three minutes left in Game 5, and the Denver Nuggets nursing a 12-point lead, David Adelman did the smartest thing possible: He ran a play for Jamal Murray. The entire action took only about five seconds to unfold, but even in that tiny frame, an entire night of back-and-forth brilliance revealed itself.
The possession began with Kris Dunn hugging Murray’s waist at the right elbow, where the Nuggets point guard waited for Nikola Jokic to saunter over and set a screen. Once it came, he accelerated toward the opposite wing, where Aaron Gordon was waiting to give him the ball.
The Los Angeles Clippers, having already sifted through just about every defensive option at their disposal at that point, decided to guard the play straight up. Dunn became Murray’s shadow, trailing him around Jokic’s pick and then eluding Gordon’s body on the dribble handoff. Despite having momentum on his side when he finally got the ball, Murray couldn’t gain any edge when turning the corner.
He took one hard dribble toward the rim and tried to change his speed to throw Dunn off the scent. No dice. One of the most tenacious on-ball defenders in the NBA remained draped over the left side of Murray’s body, with Kawhi Leonard now lurking in the strongside corner. Murray took two more dribbles, then changed course, planting his left foot on the block before he started to spin back the other way. Dunn officially became dislodged, and for a brief moment, Murray could breathe.
But nothing is easy against the Clippers. As Murray started to lean back, Ivica Zubac reacted to what was happening, darted off Gordon, and lunged his massive body toward Murray’s fallaway. The ball stayed in his hands about a half second longer than it normally would and didn’t leave his fingertips until the beginning of his descent. No matter. The shot went in, Murray scored his 40th point of the game, Ty Lue called timeout, and the Nuggets took a 3-2 lead in an incredibly tight first-round series that has instant classic written all over it.
Throughout Tuesday’s pivotal Game 5, the Clippers brain trust tried everything to slow Murray down. None of it worked against a player whose production had been relatively tame through the series’ first four games. By the end of a performance that can now be tacked onto a hallowed list of Murray games, the NBA’s most dangerous X factor had broken one of its most tenacious defenses.
Murray’s final stat line from the 131-115 victory says a lot: 43 points, seven assists, five rebounds, three steals, and only one turnover. He finished 17-for-26 from the field and 8-for-14 behind the arc—good for an 81.3 true shooting percentage. But how Murray dominated shows even more. At various points, the Clippers stuck Dunn on him, told Leonard to shut him down, and also gave Derrick Jones Jr. a shot. They blitzed the Murray-Jokic pick-and-roll and went small with switches to force some isolation. They double-teamed him at the start of the second and fourth quarters when Jokic was on the bench. They switched the matchups and put Zubac on Russell Westbrook, hoping he could roam and stay away from Murray’s wrath. All of it made sense. None of it was effective.
When you consider the shotmaking, the myriad coverages, and the undeniable pressure to win a pivotal showdown against a team that’s pretty much built to make Murray’s life miserable, it was the most impressive and important game any player has had in this postseason. (Not to get too wonky, but Murray’s game score and “DRE” in Game 5 were both the highest of the playoffs so far.)
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What makes this showing particularly remarkable is Los Angeles’s defensive strategy at the start of the game. Lue and Jeff Van Gundy clearly wanted to disrupt Murray’s individual offense, hard blitzing him off every ball screen. It reminded me of something an NBA coach told me a few years ago: Essentially—in his view, while fully acknowledging Jokic’s greatness—Murray is the head of Denver’s snake. If you can limit his touches, muffle his shot attempts, and make him pass the ball, the game’s tactical landscape will shift in your favor. It’s one of the few examples this season when the Clippers executed a smart defensive game plan only to watch their opponent shrug.
When asked after the game about L.A.’s slow start in the first quarter, Lue’s answer wasn’t complicated. “The tough start was Jamal Murray,” he said. “I thought he came out being aggressive, which we knew he would. That’s why we started off with a blitz against him, just to slow him down. We knew in Game 5 he would come out aggressive, and he made every shot. … We did everything. We blitzed him, we dropped, we switched, we did a lot of different coverages, but he had a hell of a game.”
Denver responded to that pressure with various off-ball actions, like this flare screen, to get Murray loose:
It was the type of display that makes everything else in the NBA seem moot. When Murray has it really going, with a pep in his step and zero physical limitations, there’s an inevitable aura that surrounds the Nuggets. Their flaws become an irrelevant subplot, and they look unbeatable.
The big question now is how many more times he can crush like this, be it against the Clippers, the Oklahoma City Thunder, or any other team in the league. The Nuggets don’t need 40-point haymakers from Murray to win basketball games, but they do need him to look like the force he was two years ago if they want to win a championship. Murray’s 43 points were his most since the bubble; he hadn’t scored at least 40 since Game 2 of Denver’s first-round series against the Minnesota Timberwolves in 2023. The man spouts lava when he’s healthy.
Depth issues remain. Michael Porter Jr.’s shoulder and Gordon’s calf are keeping this team from being its absolute self. But when Murray is cooking like he did in Game 5, obliterating every adjustment, drilling just about every jump shot, and accelerating into full speed just about every time Denver needs a bucket, it’s hard to say anything else actually matters.
