{"id":261454,"date":"2025-09-01T16:11:22","date_gmt":"2025-09-01T16:11:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/261454\/"},"modified":"2025-09-01T16:11:22","modified_gmt":"2025-09-01T16:11:22","slug":"jamal-murray-nuggets-rediscover-passing-joy-in-win-over-jazz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/261454\/","title":{"rendered":"Jamal Murray, Nuggets rediscover passing joy in win over Jazz"},"content":{"rendered":"

SALT LAKE CITY \u2014 Jamal Murray contorted his face into a demonstrative expression worthy of Edvard Munch\u2019s \u201cThe Scream.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was dribbling the ball past mid-court. The Nuggets were hunting fast-break points in Utah, and Murray needed to get a message across to Peyton Watson. The young forward was in the far corner, spaced next to Michael Porter Jr. on the right wing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was trying to tell him to cut,\u201d Murray told The Denver Post.<\/p>\n

How to communicate this? With his mouth agape, as if in dismay; his eyes practically popping out of his head; his right eyebrow ever so slightly raised. Murray is a man of many memorable countenances. This was an instant Hall of Fame entry.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was trying to tell him to go,\u201d he continued, \u201cbecause Mike was beside him, so (Watson) thought maybe it was going to be a swing, swing (for a corner 3-point attempt). But he was wide open. So I was just trying to tell him to do what he did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watson got the point. Murray launched a 40-foot pass over four Jazz defenders, only one of whom had caught on. Brice Sensabaugh thought he could undercut Watson\u2019s route and intercept or deflect the pass in midair. But the ball floated over his outstretched fingers and into Watson\u2019s, a few inches from the rim.<\/p>\n

In their last game of 2024, the Nuggets had a new contender for alley-oop of the year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a great catch as well,\u201d Murray said. \u201cAlmost took it out of his hands.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watson flexed at the bench. Murray hopped in place, visibly brimming with joy. The kind of joy that has been unusually absent from the faces of the Denver Nuggets much of this season.<\/p>\n

Their 132-121 road win to close out the year was, at minimum, a fleeting reminder of the daring, effervescent and even cocky connectivity that fueled this franchise to a championship in the first half of the decade. The Nuggets would prefer it be more than fleeting, of course. The defining emotion of the season has been Nikola Jokic\u2019s simmering frustration<\/a>, at times as noticeable on the court as Murray\u2019s excitement was on Monday.<\/p>\n

Michael Malone has questioned his players\u2019 effort a handful of times, even calling them out for \u201cmessing with the game\u201d after a win over Detroit on Saturday<\/a>. Losses to New Orleans, Washington and Portland have held them back from the top tier of teams in the West. Mostly, it\u2019s been a defense problem. But even on nights when they\u2019ve casually reached 120 points \u2014 20 of the first 31 games \u2014 there\u2019s often been something intangible missing within the process of scoring. Call it enthusiasm, or creativity, or cohesion.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to find our rhythm, and everybody\u2019s bringing up the intensity and realizing what it takes to win,\u201d Murray told The Post. \u201cI think tonight was another example of us playing very unselfish on the offensive end, and getting enough stops to win a game on the road, and I just felt like everyone was super dialed in coming here, especially (for) just a one-day, one-game trip to close out the year. Everybody was on the same page, in terms of the energy we needed to bring and the reason why we\u2019re here.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026 When the ball is moving like that and everybody\u2019s eating, there\u2019s really nothing to complain about. There\u2019s really nothing to overthink. Guys were just out there having fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even for a team that prides itself on ball-movement offense more than anything else, the win in Utah was a top-percentile passing performance. It was only the 12th game of Malone\u2019s coaching tenure, including playoffs, that Denver registered 35 or more assists and single-digit turnovers. The ratio was 38 to 7.<\/p>\n

It was also the first time in the NBA since 1992 that three teammates amassed 10 assists in the same game. Murray, Jokic and Russell Westbrook each displayed passing wizardry. Jokic recorded his fourth career 35-point, 20-rebound triple-double. Aside from Jokic, there have been four other 35-20-10 performances in the NBA since the 1976 merger.<\/p>\n

Westbrook became the second player in league history to record a \u201cperfect\u201d triple-double (100% shooting from the field, 100% from the foul line and zero turnovers), joining Domantas Sabonis.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe came here for one reason, that\u2019s to help us win a championship,\u201d Malone said. \u201cAnd he hates to lose. And that\u2019s what I also love about him, is that he\u2019s built the right way. I\u2019ll go to war with Russell Westbrook any day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Murray played with a swagger reminiscent of his finest playoff moments. His 20 points weren\u2019t quite as efficient as his scoring has been recently, but his passing somehow rivaled Jokic\u2019s. There was the alley-oop to Watson. The fast-break lob to Christian Braun. The behind-the-back dish in transition. The no-look bounce pass to a cutting Braun for a reverse dunk, which elicited another confident reaction from Murray \u2014 shaking his head cooly as he got back on defense.<\/p>\n

Braun\u2019s 18 transition points were the most anyone has scored in the league this season, another sign that all five Denver starters were doing what they do best.<\/p>\n

Before opening tip, Malone had pointed out that a substantial number of the team\u2019s turnovers have simply been passing errors. That can mean a bad delivery or an unprepared receiver. The former speaks to execution. The latter speaks to chemistry. Why haven\u2019t the Nuggets clicked?<\/p>\n

\"DenverDenver Nuggets guard Jamal Murray (27) reacts to a call by an official, during the second half of an NBA basketball game against the Utah Jazz, Monday, Dec. 30, 2024, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo\/Rick Egan)<\/p>\n

\u201cGuys being unselfish. Too unselfish,\u201d Murray said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got a lot of guys who like to pass, who like to make the right read. And sometimes that hurts us. Sometimes Jok catches in the middle of the paint, and he\u2019s trying to do something else, and it\u2019s like, \u2018Yo, just go up (and score).\u2019 Sometimes I get in there and I get indecisive and then turn it over. And Russ sometimes does the same thing. I think the other nights, when it works and everybody\u2019s on the same page, it looks really good, you know what I\u2019m saying? So I think you\u2019ve gotta go through those mistakes, just to kind of get better. So this was a good step in the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Including himself among those prone to becoming \u201ctoo unselfish\u201d was astute. The Nuggets want Murray shooting at a high volume. When he leans too heavily into facilitating as only dimension of his offensive game, the search for secondary scoring behind Jokic often becomes aimless, and Denver often loses. That Murray was still able to find room for 20 points in a performance so heavy on distributing was encouraging.<\/p>\n

There was no such thing as a bad pass in Utah. With a wild gesticulation toward Watson, Murray even disproved the age-old notion that to telegraph a pass is a cardinal sin.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell,\u201d he said, \u201cI mean, if the defense ain\u2019t looking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Want more Nuggets news? Sign up for the Nuggets Insider to get all our NBA analysis.<\/a><\/p>\n

Originally Published: December 31, 2024 at 10:34 AM MST<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SALT LAKE CITY \u2014 Jamal Murray contorted his face into a demonstrative expression worthy of Edvard Munch\u2019s \u201cThe…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261455,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3785],"tags":[7,561,765,301,187,766,762,423,165,4231,764,252,6,253,302,1146,254,66,422,427,3972],"class_list":{"0":"post-261454","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-utah-jazz","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-christian-braun","10":"tag-colorado","11":"tag-denver","12":"tag-denver-nuggets","13":"tag-front-range","14":"tag-jamal-murray","15":"tag-jazz","16":"tag-latest-headlines","17":"tag-michael-malone","18":"tag-michael-porter","19":"tag-more-nuggets-news","20":"tag-nba","21":"tag-nikola-jokic","22":"tag-nuggets","23":"tag-peyton-watson","24":"tag-russell-westbrook","25":"tag-sports","26":"tag-utah","27":"tag-utah-jazz","28":"tag-utahjazz"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115129921453774638","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}