"The higher the bar, the more competitive he gets": Jamal Murray is blossoming in year two

DENVER — A little less than an hour before the Nuggets took on the San Antonio Spurs in a nationally televised game Tuesday, Jamal Murray labored through his pregame warmup on the Pepsi Center hardwood. The second-year guard practiced mid-range pull ups and spot-up threes the same as always, but this time something seemed a little off.

After he clanked a three from the top of the arc, Murray paused, hunched over and put his hands on his knees to catch his breath. Murray was dealing with chest soreness, which we would later learn affected his breathing to the point that it made it difficult for him to sleep.

Murray never said publicly what caused the chest soreness, but whatever it was didn’t stop him from going out and scoring 17 points on nine shots and playing 38 minutes in a 117-109 win over San Antonio.

“I looked at him the first three minutes, and he was really struggling to breathe,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said. “A timeout was called to give him a chance to get his breath back. I thought he was fantastic considering the fact that he didn’t practice, didn’t go through shootaround, hasn’t really been able to sleep.”

Tuesday’s game marked another instance of Murray pushing through when things weren’t going his way. The soon-to-be-21-year-old from Kitchener, Ontario, has shrugged off questions about his athleticism, an 0-for-16 start to his pro career, competition at the point guard spot and a double sports hernia, which didn’t cause him to miss time any time as a rookie.

Murray, who will compete in the Rising Stars Challenge on Friday and the Skills Competition on Saturday at NBA All-Star Weekend, has blossomed in his second season largely because of his ability to block out everything and step onto the hardwood night after night and compete.

“The higher the bar, the more competitive he gets,” Nuggets president of basketball operations Tim Connelly told BSN Denver. “We see something special in him. We don’t want him to settle for anything less than he can be.”

Murray has looked like one of the most promising young players in basketball in the last two and a half months. Since the start of December, he’s averaging 18.3 points (48.1 percent FG, 45.0 percent three), 3.9 rebounds and 3.3 assists. His lethal shooting stroke, which he relied on to sink the most threes by any college freshman not named Steph Curry, is translating. There’s also a ruthlessness in his game.

“I kind of smirked when I shot it,” said Murray on Feb. 1 after his step-back move caused Steven Adams to crumple to the ground and the internet to go haywire. “I shot the ball and looked down at the same time, and I was like, ‘Damn.’ It’s not the first time I’ve done it.”

Murray scored 33 points in that game, which Denver won 127-124 on Gary Harris’ buzzer beater. Denver’s future looked bright that night. Murray led the team in scoring, making 14-23 field-goal attempts from every zone on the floor. Harris had 25, including the game-winning three. Nikola Jokic, who threw a dime to Harris on the game winner from out of bounds, slapped up an absurd state line: 29 points, 13 rebounds and 14 assists.

Denver has an excellent veteran in Paul Millsap on the roster and a number of other intriguing young pieces, but it’s those three the Nuggets are counting on to lead the franchise into the future.

“They’ve started to figure each other out on the court,” Connelly said. “Nikola is very dry, super laid back. Jamal is super intense. And I think Gary adds to the mix as well. Gary is never overwhelmed by the moment. He really enjoys himself out there. You see a lot of smiles, a quiet intensity. Collectively, I think a lot of our young guys do a good job of complimenting each other.”

If Jokic is the offensive genius who racks up triple-doubles the way a college student does parking tickets, and Harris is the steady shooting guard who won’t even break character after drilling a game winner, then Murray is the scorer who’s not afraid to do the dirty work, a 20-year-old the perfect mix of cocky and confident.

“I’ve been working to get here, coming from a small city in Canada, trying to get my looks, trying to get my attention,” Murray said after the win over Oklahoma City. “All I can do is break more ankles and score more points to do that. I’m not going to stop, and I don’t see no one else stopping me either.”

Murray expects a lot out of himself, and so do the Nuggets. Denver’s front office was buzzing the night he fell to them at seven in the 2016 draft. The Nuggets reportedly had him ranked third on their big board behind Ben Simmons and Brandon Ingram. They caught a break when the New Orleans Pelicans selected Buddy Hield sixth.

One of the things Nuggets coaches and front office staffers love about Murray is that they don’t have to treat him with the kid gloves on. Malone yells at him in huddles and practices because he knows he can take it. Connelly isn’t afraid of ribbing Murray after off shooting nights or blown defensive assignments because he knows what Murray’s made of.

“I’m so hard on him because I think he can be special,” Connelly said. “Then I take a step back and see what he’s doing at 20 years old. He’s an extremely talented kid, who really cares because he’s super competitive. So when I take a step back from the day to day when I’m needling him and challenging him, you can’t not be impressed by his play. And certainly not just by his play but the team play. He’s doing it in for a winning team that’s trending toward the playoffs.”