Welcome to the Basketball Hangover. NBA Playoff Basketball is afoot!
Jamal Murray and the Nuggets withstood Donovan Mitchell’s 57 points to win in overtime.
(PHOTO CREDIT: Ashley Landis/AP.)
It was easy for me to overlook Jamal Murray. After all, he was sidelined early during the bubble sessions (that sounds really dirty) with a hamstring injury. And when he did play, he was his usual fare self but it didn’t exactly stand out. Michael Porter, Jr. took most of the headlines involving anything related to Denver Nuggets basketball.
That didn’t exactly change in the first 44 minutes and change of the game. He stood at 16 points while Donovan Mitchell was raising hell on the other side. Then it became a compelling duel between the two. Murray and Mitchell exchanged points for a few minutes and scored 19 points between them. That explosion led to a 113-113 tie. Nikola Jokic and Mitchell then exchanged free throws to keep it a draw. Jokic would miss a lay-up over Rudy Gobert and we had overtime.
Murray kept his foot on the pedal. He would score 10 more points in overtime and his last three pretty much put it out of reach. Mitchell desperately tried to keep his team in it, as he had been the entire game but the Nuggets came out with the duke. Jamal Murray was serious:
Jamal Murrayβs shot chart in OT. pic.twitter.com/UoEm4N5eci
β ππ¦πΊ-ππ¦πΊ π€πΎβπΎ (@TheNoLookPass) August 17, 2020
Donovan Mitchell scored 57 points, which happens to be the third most points in a playoff game individually (we know about Michael Jordan’s 63 points in 1986, which broke Elgin Baylor‘s record of 61 in 1962). But Murray matched him shot by shot in the last 8 minutes of the game. He scored 20 points to bring his total to 36 and we forgot how capable he was of lighting the game up like that.
Mitchell gets too much criticism for being such a gunner but there are reasons stars get the most shots. Because they are obviously the most skilled in putting the ball in the basket. So I can always live with that unless it stands out too much. Mitchell was on fire the entire game and he can’t be faulted for going off like that.
But Murray showed that he can do that, too. And he’s one of the main reasons why the Nuggets have grown as a team. Yeah, we have the all-world player Jokic but Murray is the spitfire of that Nuggets team. And if he can’t make his shots, he can still play a nice two-man game with Jokic or any of the Nuggets out there.
What an opener to the postseason.
Bullet Passes
As if it wasn’t bad enough that Murray had to see Mitchell on the court, he had to see him off the court in the bubble, too:
The NBA Bubble is a wild place pic.twitter.com/Y43ER0dVCX
β Duncan Smith (@DuncanSmithNBA) August 17, 2020
57 POINTS.
In a shocker, the Raptors won Game 1 of their first round series with the Nets. We know the tradition of the Raptors always losing Game 1.
(Looking back, they had lost every single Game 1 in the first round in their current playoff run except for 2018. Good job, Wizards.)
By the way, Fred VanVleet is going to get paid next season. He scored 30 points on Monday.
Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown are such a scary duo. Tatum went for 32 points and 13 boards while Brown had 29 points. Might be the best wing duo in the league very soon. My gosh.
Kristaps Porzingis (yeah, yeah, I know) got ejected for two weak technical fouls. First, he got a technical for complaining that this wasn’t a foul (it clearly was not). And then he got a second tech for defending Luka Doncic from infamous bully Marcus Morris. This pretty much ruined the game between the Mavs and Clippers. Let them play.
Luka went off for 42 points and set a record for most points in a playoff debut. But he pretty much had to do it because his running mate got kicked out.
I defend officials quite a bit because I know they have a tough job to do. But I can’t defend this. Let the players play. Y’all should be nondescript.
NBA Playoff Scoreboard
Game 1: #3 DEN 135 vs #6 UTA 125 (OT) (DEN leads, 1-0)
Game 1: #2 TOR 134 vs #7 BRK 110 (TOR leads, 1-0)
Game 1: #3 BOS 109 vs #6 PHI 101 (BOS leads, 1-0)
Game 1: #2 LAC 118 vs #7 DAL 110 (LAC leads, 1-0)
Watch This Play
This is just two of Mitchell’s 57.
Donovan Mitchell with the double pump dunk pic.twitter.com/fsw962E8zi
β gifdsports (@gifdsports) August 17, 2020
Let’s not forget that he was once a dunk champ. Good grief.
Take care, bubble residents!
Rey-Rey is on Twitter at @TheNoLookPass.
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