Jamal Murray's knee injury could change everything for the Nuggets

Jamal Murray’s left knee buckled, and immediately your mind wandered.

It wandered back to the bubble where Murray put on the performance of a lifetime. His two 50-point stunners against the Jazz. His 40-point Game 7 against the Clippers. His postgame commentary following Game 6 vs. Utah, with George Floyd and Breonna Taylor enshrined on his sneakers.

It wandered back to Murray’s first few years in Denver. When Murray in his sophomore season sent Steven Adams to the floor with an ankle-breaking step-back jumper and declared to anyone willing to listen that he was just getting started. The 24-year-old has grown up a lot since then. Murray’s still fighting for the respect he feels like he’s never gotten enough of coming from Canada, but he’s doing it differently. Murray has fired fewer and fewer Blue Arrrows over the last couple of seasons. He’s let his play do the talking.

Those are the thoughts that run through your mind when an ultimate warrior like Murray, who’s played through countless injuries, bumps and bruises throughout his Nuggets tenure, is writhing in pain on the hardwood. Denver won’t know the severity of Murray’s left knee injury until Tuesday after he undergoes an MRI, but it’s hard not to expect that he’ll miss a significant amount of time.

It didn’t look good. Maybe Murray returns this season, maybe he doesn’t. Denver has to expect the worst, although some Nuggets coaches speculated to Michael Malone after watching replays of the injury that they thought it looked like a hyperextension. That would seem to be the definitive best-case scenario at this point.

[Update 12:00 pm MT: Nuggets have announced that Jamal Murray tore the ACL in his left knee. He’s officially without a timetable to return]

“It was just scary,” Michael Porter Jr. said. “I just saw him on the break going to the hoop, and then two guys kind of came to him. They blocked my view because I was right behind them. Then I saw him toss the ball up and go down. After that, I heard him yelling in pain. I don’t know what was going on. Like I said, praying for him.”

It’s the ultimate gut punch in what had the feeling of a dream season for the Nuggets up until the final 50 seconds of Monday’s fourth quarter. Prior to Denver’s 116-107 loss to the Warriors, the Nuggets were 17-4 since Feb. 27 and tied with the Suns for the best record in the NBA over their last 21 games. Aaron Gordon was looking like the perfect Swiss army knife to push Denver into West’s top tier and his arrival had rejuvenated Nuggets players and coaches. Nikola Jokic has been the best player in the league all season. Murray, who was sidelined for Denver’s last four games with right knee soreness, was getting closer to a return.

He was back in the lineup for Monday’s national TV battle with the Warriors and logged 33 minutes. Malone said postgame that Murray had no minute restriction and didn’t believe that his minutes total contributed to the injury. Midway through the third quarter, Murray appeared to clip his left knee — the same one he would seriously injure in the final minute of the regulation — on Kevon Looney. Murray checked out at the next dead ball. He reentered the game to open the fourth.

“I don’t think the minutes played had something to do with it,” Malone said. “I just think it was a freak accident. And again, I’ll be keeping Jamal and his family in my thoughts and prayers.”

Murray’s will, fortitude, and perseverance were on display to the bitter end. His injury occurred with less than one minute to go with the Nuggets’ trailing by seven points. If Murray finishes the layup on the play he was injured on, Denver would have trimmed Golden State’s lead to five with 50 seconds left after trailing by 11 points with 1:50 remaining in the fourth. Few players fight like Murray until the final buzzer. Few have his drive, his spirit, or his fire.

“He’s a Warrior. A guy who never quits,” Jokic said. “That’s kind of our identity.”

While the Nuggets’ offensive identity has always been built in Jokic’s image, Denver’s resiliency is built in Murray’s. The kid from Kitchener, Ontario doesn’t back down from anyone. He’s as competitive as they come. The challenge of coming back from two 3-1 deficits didn’t intimidate Murray one bit. He wants the pressure on his shoulders every single time down the floor. Murray’s fearlessness and drive is a key reason why the Nuggets’ playoff ceiling is so high. The pieces all fit, but Denver knows Murray is always likely to deliver in the highest-leverage of situations.

He’s 1 of 1.

The Nuggets’ championship aspirations that were becoming more and more real by the week will have to be put on hold if Murray’s injury is season-ending. Denver can insert Monte Morris into its starting lineup and will still make the playoffs and maintain one of the NBA’s best offenses. But just how deep the Nuggets can advance into the postseason takes a drastic hit without Murray.

In the interim, Murray’s absence gives Porter an opportunity to take on even more of a leading role in Denver’s attack. Porter is stuck in a three-game 4-26 three-point shooting slump, but since March 1 is still averaging 20.1 points on 57.1% shooting from the field and 44.4% from three. After beautifully reshaping his floor game to fit perfectly next to Jokic and Murray over the last couple of months, Porter will have to adjust again and take on more offensive responsibility and usage in Murray’s absence. It’s a great test for the forward as the Nuggets try to recalibrate on the fly without their rock.

Murray has been Denver’s heartbeat for the last two seasons. He was the Nuggets’ voice in the bubble and we’ll never fully grasp the mental and physical toll that Denver’s playoff run had on him. Murray logged the fourth-most minutes in the 2020 playoffs despite the fact that the Nuggets didn’t make the NBA Finals. Throughout the 19 postseason games he played, Murray ran the equivalent of two marathons and was running a 10K every three days with the league’s every-other-day playoff schedule.

He then spent a truncated two-month offseason back in Kitchener with his family and teenage brother, who Murray trains every summer. Basketball seemed secondary based on how the point guard described his offseason regiment. During last month’s All-Star break, Murray didn’t touch a basketball at all. He needed a physical and mental break from the grind of a regular season that’s been unlike any other.

Throughout the peaks and valleys of the first four months of the regular season, Murray maintained a levelheaded mindset. He scoffed at reporters who continually asked him if he was worried about Denver’s trajectory when the Nuggets were hovering around .500 in February. In Murray’s mind, it was always about the playoffs, getting there in one piece, and then improving on last season’s Western Conference Finals finish.

Injuries are a part of basketball, but it won’t be fair if Murray can’t finish the job this season. Then again, life isn’t fair. Murray has put in so much work, so many shots behind closed doors, and poured so much blood and sweat into this era of Nuggets basketball. He’s led the Nuggets up the mountaintop. It’s not right that he might not be there to take Denver to the summit.

“Y’all know what he means to us,” Porter said. “He’s the dude, you know what I’m saying. Nikola and Jamal. They’ve been here. They’ve brought this team to new heights.”

“We need Jamal, and we all know that.”