Canada’s Murray drops 37, shines in 4th quarter to propel Nuggets past Lakers to lead series 2-0

After Nikola Jokic’s monstrous play in the opener, his pick-and-roll partner Jamal Murray was in the spotlight in the Western Conference finals on Thursday night.

Murray, of Kitchener, Ontario, scored 23 of his 37 points in the fourth quarter, powering the Denver Nuggets to a 108-103 comeback victory over the Los Angeles Lakers for a 2-0 series lead.

Murray missed 12 of his 17 shots in three quarters, but found his touch in the fourth, making six of seven, including four 3-pointers, and fueling a 15-1 run that gave Denver a 96-84 lead.

“He made shots at the end of the clock,” lamented LeBron James. “We defended for 24 seconds and he made two important shots, one over [Anthony Davis] and one about me. He had his three-point shot in the fourth. I’m not surprised, he’s done it before. Sometimes it is a league that is never lost.”

In total, Denver hit seven 3-pointers in the fourth quarter after hitting seven all night.

“It would have been a lot easier if I had scored them in the first half,” said Murray, who still plays with an earache that he hasn’t been able to shake since Round 2.

Jokic added 23 points, 17 rebounds and a dozen assists a day after ESPN sideline reporter Lisa Salters gave the Nuggets the disrespect card by acknowledging that she had never seen the two-time MVP play before the game. Game 1, when he had 34 points. , 21 boards and 14 assists.

As for Jokic, he played down slights towards him and his teammates, saying: “It’s nothing new for us.”

Malone was pretty upset that the Lakers got the whole pub.

“You win Game 1 and everyone was talking about the Lakers,” Malone said. “Let’s be honest, the national narrative was, ‘Hey, the Lakers are good. They’re down 1-0, but they got by.’ No one talked about how Nikola just put in a historic performance. He’s 13 [playoff] triple-doubles now, third all-time. What he is doing is just amazing.

“But his narrative wasn’t about the Nuggets. The narrative wasn’t about Nikola. The narrative was about the Lakers and their adjustments. So you know, you put that in your pipe and smoke it, you come back and you know.” what, we’re going up 2-0.”

The Nuggets have never been this close to reaching the NBA Finals in their history. Game 3 is Saturday night at Crypto.com Arena, where James and the Lakers are 8-0 in the playoffs.

Malone said he reminded Murray going into the fourth quarter not to worry about his shooting problems but to focus on contributing in other ways. He heeded that advice, grabbing three big boards on defense and stealing the ball twice while going 4-for-5 from deep and 7-for-8 from the line.

“The three-point line is what killed us in the fourth,” James said.

Malone knew that when Murray finally found the net, many more buckets would follow.

“We all know… he just has to see one come in,” Malone said, and when that happened, “he looked up at the sky and that’s all he needs. And after that, he’s shooting a hula hoop.” “

Just like in Game 1, the Lakers didn’t go down easily. They got three points on Austin Reaves’ jumper before Murray hit two free throws with 12 seconds left and Bruce Brown stole the ball from James, then dribbled the final 8 seconds.

James and Reaves scored 22 for Los Angeles. Davis scored 18 after scoring 40 in the opener, and Rui Hachimra scored 21 points off the bench.

For much of the night, it looked as if the Lakers were going to wrest home-field advantage from the Nuggets, who are the top seed for the first time in their history. The Lakers won the series openers in Memphis and Golden State to clinch the conference championship.

The excellent defense that Hachimura played on Jokic in the fourth quarter of the Lakers’ Game 1 loss led many to believe that coach Darvin Ham would open up Hachimura to try to lock down the Nuggets’ star center early on. But instead, he came off the bench again, scoring 17 points in the first half but only four after.

“Proud of our guys,” Ham said. “They bounced back. We tackled a lot of the things that we said we were going to try to do better. We still have to be better in transition D. But overall, the energy was there, the effort was there, the urgency was there, we just take a bad stretch”.

And a suddenly red hot Jamal Murray.