Jamal Murray is one of the best scorers to have ever stepped foot on the floor for the Denver Nuggets in the franchise’s near 60-year history. The value of his ability to work with Nikola Jokic in the pick-and-roll action, create space for himself in isolations and get downhill and attack the rim has shown in recent years, and is the reason why they only lost four games en route to winning the title in 2023.

There is one problem with Murray’s game, however. He doesn’t shoot enough 3-pointers, which he trades for mid-range jump shots too often. In an era of the NBA filled with analytics and stat sheets saying that 3-pointers are better than 2-pointers, he is one of the last players who have adjusted by increasing their average 3-point attempts. In fact, his 3-point attempts per game have gone down the last two seasons after setting a career high in 2021 and 2023 with 6.6.

This year, Murray had the sixth-highest field goal percentage on above the break 3-pointers in the regular season, hitting them at a 39.5% clip. In the postseason, that number was 37.6%. Of the players in the top-10, his 354 attempts on those such threes was the third-fewest, and by far the fewest among the players who are primary ball-handlers for their respective teams. In turn, he took 278 mid-range field goals, the sixth-most in the league, and made 45% of them, good for 35th place.

The postseason showed that the Nuggets needed more from Murray, and his 43-point explosion in Game 5 of the first round against the Clippers was proof. In that game, he shot a playoff-high 14 3-pointers and made eight of them, with only one of the eight makes coming from the corner. The only other time he took at least nine 3-pointers in a game in the playoffs was Game 5 against Oklahoma City, but he went ice cold, making just three of them. The Nuggets are 13-5 in the playoffs when Murray attempts at least nine threes, with a handful of those victories being pivotal, series-swinging wins.

Take a look at Minnesota’s Anthony Edwards. He shot 475 above the break threes in the 2023-24 season before bumping all the way up to 701 this season. In turn, he increased both his points per game and his 3-point field goal percentage as he led the Timberwolves to yet another Western Conference Finals appearance.

Murray had plenty of opportunities throughout these playoffs to turn some of his longer mid-range jump shots into 3-pointers, especially coming off a high ball screen. Remember, you only need to make two out of every six 3-pointers to score the same amount of points if you were to make three out of every six 2-pointers, and shooting the long ball at a higher rate could lead to more points for Murray, and open the floor more for the rest of the offense.

Curious to how different the Nuggets’ offense and scoring output would look if Jamal Murray turned some of the mid-range shots he took into 3-pointers, especially given he was one of the most efficient above the break shooters this year pic.twitter.com/TdIK1CzhYZ

— Trent Finnegan (@trent_finnegan2) June 16, 2025

On this play in Game 4 against the Thunder, Murray had plenty of space to get a 3-pointer off. Instead, he took a couple steps in and opted for a mid-range and missed. If he turned just two of his mid-range attempts per game into an above the break three, it would create many more opportunities for the Nuggets to put more points on the board, especially in those games when guys like Michael Porter Jr. and Christian Braun can’t get it going from distance.

Even better, it would cause the defense to step up more on those pick and rolls, opening up more space for Jokic. Giving the three-time MVP more space only creates more opportunities, and would’ve been beneficial in the playoffs.

The Nuggets are at their best when Jamal Murray is firing on all cylinders. However, the last two postseason runs showed that the guard who is entering a 4-year max contract struggles to deal with heightened physicality, especially when he tries to get into the paint to get off a contested mid-range jumper. If he were to slightly change his game to take a couple more deep shots instead of twos, it could limit the opponent’s ability to be physical with him, and it could unlock a new level of offense for Denver alongside Jokic.