"He's been setting moving screens the whole series": How the Nuggets answer Spurs' physicality could decide playoff fate

SAN ANTONIO — A little more than an hour after the Nuggets fell to the Spurs in Game 3 of their first-round series, Monte Morris arrived back at Denver’s team hotel situated in downtown San Antonio, took out his cell phone and transmitted a few words of encouragement to his starting point guard over the Texas airwaves.

“I just told him, ‘It’s midnight. It’s a new day. It’s basketball,'” Morris said Friday afternoon of the series of text message he sent Jamal Murray following Denver’s 118-108 loss. “The good thing about a series is you get a day off, you’re right back at it again. I said, ‘Trust yourself. You’re our anchor. You’ve got us this far the whole season playing your style of basketball. Being aggressive, having fun.’ That’s the Jamal Murray I’m used to seeing.”

Murray has been neutralized thus far in his first career playoff series outside of one quarter where he dropped 21 points on San Antonio to lift the Nuggets to a miraculous Game 2 win. Spurs point guard Derrick White has frustrated Murray, limiting the 22-year-old to 39.1% shooting from the field across three games. Remove Murray’s 21-point fourth quarter from the equation and he’s shot just 10-37 in the series. Murray finished with six points on 2-of-6 shooting in Game 3 and recorded four turnovers to just one assist.

White is also averaging 23 points in the series on 69% shooting. The Nuggets allowed 19 blow bys by the Spurs, according to the team’s internal tracking data, many of which were by White. The blow bys were a point of emphasis in the team’s Friday morning film session.

“I’m hoping that he has the same reaction Derrick White had,” Malone said of what he expects from Murray in Game 4. “Derrick White was the recipient of Jamal Murray’s great play in the fourth quarter of Game 2, and he came out in Game 3 highly motivated and in attack mode. We’ve got to get Jamal Murray playing at a higher level. In three playoff games, 12 quarters, Jamal has impacted the game at a high level in one of those. … Jamal has got to take that personally, and I expect that to happen tomorrow afternoon.”

Denver is confident Murray will bounce back, and over the course of the season, he’s shown the ability to quickly put away poor performances. He’ll need to call on his quick memory over the next few hours ahead of a pivotal Game 4.

“I’m not worried about him at all,” Harris said of his backcourt partner. “I think he’s going to come out and be ready.”

Ahead of what Harris called a “must-win,” simply because it’s Denver’s next game in the series, Malone also wants more physicality from his team. The Nuggets, who were the second-best rebounding team in the league this season, have been uncharacteristically outrebounded by the Spurs in all three games.

Denver has also been the recipient of a few physical screens from San Antonio in the series, including one in Thursday’s fourth-quarter where Jakob Poeltl extended his right knee into Murray’s left thigh. The screen drew the ire of Murray who confronted Poeltl after the play and was seen in obvious discomfort on the Nuggets’ bench later in the game.

“If you set physical screens the whole games like they do, the refs will let you play,” Malone said. “We did a really good job in Game 1, pretty good job in Game 2. Last night we didn’t screen. For example, Paul Millsap late in the game finally sets a screen, and they call him for an illegal screen because that’s the first time they saw us really set a good screen. Jakob Poeltl sets really good moving screens and he does it the whole game and he gets away with it.”

Malone didn’t think the screen was dirty, but Denver still sent video of the play to the league as evidence of illegal screens that aren’t being called.

“Playoff physicality,” Gary Harris called it. “They were setting screens the whole night, so I think they got away with one. That was just them being more aggressive.”

“He’s been setting moving screens the whole series.”

How Murray and the Nuggets respond in the opening stages of Game 4 could determine Denver’s playoff fate.