Just 48 hours after watching from the bench as his team blew an eight-point lead in the final three minutes of Sunday’s loss in Indiana, Jamal Murray scored a game-high 28 points and led the Denver Nuggets to one of their more impressive victories of the season — a 103-84 road win over the struggling Detroit Pistons.
Against the Pacers, Nuggets coach Michael Malone opted to try and close out Indiana without his point guard. Murray sat as Will Barton, who took on the primary ball-handling responsibilities, Gary Harris, Wilson Chandler, Trey Lyles and Kenneth Faried played most of the fourth quarter and overtime. But fatigue eventually set in, and the Pacers pulled away for a 126-116 win as Denver went on a near eight-minute scoring drought that spanned the fourth quarter and overtime period.
Tonight, after the Nuggets methodically built a nine-point halftime lead, Murray exploded for 13 of Denver’s 31 points in the third quarter, highlighted by a SportsCenter Top-10 worthy slam over Reggie Jackson. The Nuggets eventually pushed their advantage to 20 and pulled away behind Murray, who has now scored at least 22 points in three of his last six games.
“I’m just trying to get my legs back. I had surgery this summer so it felt good to get one up and just get my body back,” Murray said of his dunk via Altitude TV’s broadcast. “That was just a taste of what I can do.”
More encouraging than Murray’s raw numbers is that the Kentucky product is finally hitting his jumper from three. After a 2-21 slump from distance to start the season and a 2-22 stretch from three over six games in late-November, Murray has hit 16 of his last 30 attempts from beyond the arc. He shot 4-8 from three tonight.
Murray registered just three points in the first quarter against Indiana but came out hot against Detroit. He scored nine in the first quarter and his confidence was brimming from the opening tip.
“Early in the game, I was just trying to call a couple plays to get him going, get him looks,” Malone said. “Because once I think Jamal sees the ball go through the net early on, he starts shooting into a very big basket as the game goes along.”
“I was playing passive the last few games, just trying to get everybody in order on the road,” Murray added. “It’s hard to play like that. (I’ve) got to push the pace and play my game. Play to the tempo that we want to play. Tonight I did that and we benefited from that.”
The Nuggets carried a 20-point lead into the fourth, but the Pistons showed signs of life at the beginning of the quarter and put together a brief 11-6 run to trim Denver’s lead to 15. Murray countered with back-to-back threes, and Trey Lyles scored five of the Nuggets’ next seven points to push Denver comfortably ahead for good.
Lyles, who’s seen an uptick in playing time since Paul Millsap was lost to a sprained left wrist on Nov. 19, continues to play well in extended minutes. The versatile forward scored a team-high 25 points in Indiana on Sunday and followed up his career-high with 20 points tonight.
He finished a perfect 7-7 from the field and 3-3 from three-point range.
“Offensively, there’s not a lot of things Trey can’t do,” Malone said.
Lyles teamed with Malik Beasley, who’s also played well in an increased role as of late, to lead Denver’s second unit. Beasley tallied eight points in 24 minutes and played exceptional defense. For a third-straight game, Beasley was the first player off Malone’s bench because of what he brings defensively.
As a team, Denver had one of its better defensive showings of the year as well. The Nuggets have seen their defense crater over their past 11 games without Millsap in the lineup and ranked towards the bottom of the league in defensive efficiency during that span. The Nuggets held the Pistons to just 84 points on 35.4 percent shooting.
Denver forced Detroit into 20 turnovers, 12 of which came in the first half. Mason Plumlee played one of his better games in a Nuggets’ uniform and limited Andre Drummond to five points and ten rebounds — roughly five fewer rebounds than his season average. Plumlee played 29 minutes, chipped in 10 points, 13 rebounds and anchored Denver’s defense throughout the night.
Murray held Jackson to 4-10 shooting and 12 points. Tobias Harris, who had come into tonight averaging a career-high 18.8 points, finished with just two points in 30 minutes and shot 0-7 from the field, mostly due to Wilson Chandler‘s presence.
“It was incredible,” Murray said of his team’s defense. “It was a team effort. We were talking, we were communicating. I think it started with our shootaround and our practices. We were locked in over the past couple of days and it paid off today.”
The Nuggets’ win over the Pistons is only Denver’s fifth victory of the season away from Pepsi Center but second of their current six-game road trip.
Denver travels to Boston Tuesday night and faces the Celtics on a back-to-back Wednesday before returning home for a matchup with DeMarcus Cousins and the New Orleans Pelicans on Friday.
