Jamal Murray played the greatest quarter of his career at the biggest time.
Murray, of Kitchener, Ont., scored 37 points in Denver’s 108-103 win over the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 2 of the Western Conference finals on Thursday night – doing almost all of his damage in the final 10 minutes.
He single-handedly outscored the Lakers 23-22 in the final 9:59. He turned around an awful shooting start, and helped the Nuggets grab a 2-0 lead in the West title series.
In that 10-minute stretch, Murray was 6 for 7 from the field, 4 for 5 from three-point range and 7 for 8 from the line.
Murray’s numbers from the game’s first 38 minutes – 5 for 17 from the field, 2 for 9 on threes, 2 for 2 from the foul line.
The 23-point outburst was the highest-scoring quarter of Murray’s career. He had 22 points in the third quarter of a Denver win over Chicago on Jan. 17, 2019. And it was the ninth 20-point quarter of Murray’s career – five of those coming in fourth quarters. His 23-point fourth quarter was the seventh 20-point outburst in a quarter so far in these playoffs. (For comparison’s sake, there were only three such quarters in last season’s playoffs.)
Murray is the sixth player to score that many in this year’s playoffs; Miami’s Jimmy Butler has two – both from the same game.
This is the first time the Lakers have lost two straight games since March 15 and 17, and the first time LeBron James has played in back-to-back losses since Feb. 4 and 7. He hasn’t played in three consecutive Lakers losses since Dec. 21, 23 and 25.
What’s next?
Miami took a 1-0 lead into Game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals at Boston on Friday night. Game 3 of Lakers-Nuggets is in Los Angeles on Saturday, and Game 3 of Heat-Celtics is Sunday when that series shifts to Miami. The NBA Finals begin June 1.
Triple-double Joker
Denver’s Nikola Jokic had his seventh triple-double of this year’s playoffs in the Nuggets’ win over the Lakers – 23 points, 17 rebounds, 12 assists. It’s his fourth in a row and seventh so far in this year’s playoffs. The only other player with four in a row, and seven total, in a single postseason was Wilt Chamberlain in 1967. Jokic has as many triple-doubles in 13 games this postseason than the rest of the NBA – combined – does in the league’s past 189 playoff games, going back to the conference-semi-final round of the 2021 playoffs.
Quotable
“This is not the NCAA Tournament. It’s the first team to four wins. We have an opportunity to go home and play great basketball and hold serve. So, until a team beats you four times then you always have an opportunity to come out of it.” – the Lakers’ LeBron James, with his team down 2-0 in the West finals.