BBNBA: Jamal Murray's 23-point 4th Q overpowers Anthony Davis, Lakers

Something about the NBA Playoffs turns Jamal Murray into a future Hall of Famer…

On Thursday night in the Western Conference Finals, Murray dropped in 23 points (Twenty-Three!!) in the fourth quarter alone during the No. 1 Denver Nuggets 108-103 comeback Game 2 victory over the No. 7 Los Angeles Lakers. The Nuggets scored 32 points as a team in the final 12 minutes as Murray turned into a flamethrower.

The former Wildcat shot 6-7 from the field in the fourth, going 4-5 from deep and 7-8 from the free-throw line. If a Lakers’ defender (and didn’t matter if it was LeBron James or Anthony Davis) thought they had Murray locked up, no they didn’t. He was drilling contested triples while firing from anywhere and everywhere.

“He was special,” Two-time MVP Nikola Jokic — who dropped 23 points, 17 rebounds, and 12 assists of his own in the win — said of his teammate. “He won us the game basically.”

Murray ultimately finished with 37 points, 10 rebounds, five assists, and four steals in 42 minutes for the Nuggets, which will take a 2-0 series lead out to Los Angeles for Games 3 and 4. Denver trailed by double-digits in the second half but eventually retook the lead early in the final quarter and never looked back.

Like, how do you stop this?

Through 13 games in these playoffs, Murray is averaging 27.2 points, 5.5 rebounds, 6.2 assists, and 1.6 steals in 38.6 minutes per outing. He’s shooting 47.1 percent overall, 40.8 percent from deep, and 91.7 percent from the line. That, my friends, is the stat line of an elite player.

“He made shots at the end of the clock,” LeBron James said of Murray. “We guard for 24 seconds and he made two big-time shots, one over (Davis) and one over me. He had his 3-point shot going in the fourth. It’s no surprise to me, he’s done it before. Sometimes it’s a never-miss league.”

With the Lakers in front for most of the night, you would have assumed James and Davis produced big games. But that wasn’t exactly the case. Davis finished with a respectable 18 points, 14 rebounds, four assists, and four blocks in 41 minutes, but turned the ball over four times and made just four of his 15 shot attempts. James contributed 22 points, nine rebounds, and 10 assists, but also shot poorly from the field, missing all six of his three-point looks.

Jarred Vanderbilt was reinserted into the starting lineup for Los Angeles after coming off the bench in Game 1. And while he started the contest off well on defense, he saw just two minutes in the fourth quarter as Murray went nuclear. Vando posted four points and two rebounds in his 16 minutes. Wenyen Gabriel watched from the Lakers’ bench once again, receiving a DNP-CD for the second straight game.

Game 3 shifts to the west coast with Saturday’s matchup set for 8:30 p.m. EST in L.A. on ABC.

5/18/23 statistics

Player	Score	PTS	FG (3PT)	REB	AST	STL	BLK	TO	+/-	MIN
Jamal Murray (DEN)	108-103 W vs. LAL	37	11-24 (6-14)	10	5	4	0	3	8	42
Anthony Davis (LAL)	103-108 L @ DEN	18	4-15 (1-3)	14	4	1	4	4	-10	41
Jarred Vanderbilt (LAL)	103-108 L @ DEN	4	1-2	2	0	0	0	0	-10	16
Wenyen Gabriel (LAL)	103-108 L @ DEN	DNP-CD	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—

Tonight in the NBA

Eastern Conference Finals
8:30 (TNT): No. 8 Heat (Adebayo, Herro: out) @ No. 2 Celtics | MIA leads 1-0