The Denver Nuggets Have Missed Jamal Murray’s Drives, Isos And Post-Ups, Among Other Things

For years, Jamal Murray had been the Denver Nuggets’ stalwart co-star and co-pilot alongside now back-to-back MVP Nikola Jokic, with the pair leading the team through increasingly successful seasons culminating in a Western Conference Finals appearance. That was until misfortune struck and Murray went down with what ultimately became a double season-ending ACL tear on April 12, 2021, setting into motion an arduous rehabilitation process that has taken nearly one-and-a-half years as he player-coached from the sidelines, wishing he could play and help out his team.

In that time, Murray has missed 100 of Denver’s regular season, and 15 of their playoff games.

And oh, how the Nuggets have missed him.

Many of the ways in which Murray’s injury absence has left a Jamal-shaped hole in the Nuggets are plainly evident. Most obviously, a massive vacuum was left for Denver to fill without the 21.2 points, 4.0 rebounds, 4.8 assists and 2.7 made three-pointers on a .408 three-point percentage which the he put up in the 2020-21 season – numbers which had leapt to 26.5 points, 4.8 boards, 6.6 dimes and 3.3 threes at a blistering .453 clip in the previous playoffs.

Then of course is the dominant Murray and Jokic two-man game, which had blossomed into the Nuggets’ most formidable offensive weapon and their primary engine of success in the postseason. Moving off the bench to fill in Murray’s starting spot, Monte Morris did a commendable job last season both in his own right and in his pairing with Jokic, albeit with a different kind of chemistry. But in the consummate Vulcan mind meld between Jokic and Murray, and their transcendent synergy that created a whole far greater than the sum of its parts, the two had legitimately become something truly special, one of the best duos in the league.

Other ways that Denver missed their star point guard are less quantifiable but arguably just as impactful at times, like how he electrifies the fans in Ball Arena when he gets a “Murray flurry” of big three-point shots going and breaks out his trademark Blue Arrow gesture. Or perhaps most importantly, Murray’s stout leadership and intense passion that does so much to shape and guide the Nuggets’ team character and ethos, and was exquisitely exemplified in his superlative 2020 playoffs breakout. (I have repeatedly maintained that the Nuggets recently seeing some slippage in the identity of resiliency they’d built up over the years had a whole lot to do with Murray, the keystone of that characteristic, not being on the court.)

But digging below those over-arching numbers and qualities into some of the more nitty-gritty basketball details of what the Nuggets have missed from Jamal Murray, a few key facets of his game stand out as holes Denver had somewhat superficially patched over, but not truly replaced. Here we will look at three of these areas, all on the offensive end, with the through line being various ways in which Murray puts pressure on opposing defenses – specifically in terms of punishing them if, as they have often done recently, they try to bottle up Jokic with double teams. This is not to claim there aren’t many more things Denver has wanted for in his absence (there are), but only that these are among the aspects of Murray’s game that stand out as some which the Nuggets have particularly missed, and should be thrilled to welcome back into the fold.

Drives To The Basket

In recent years, the Nuggets have consistently been in the bottom five in the NBA in drives per game, per NBA.com (the source of all stats in this article). This is not necessarily an inherently bad thing, as there is more than one way to run an offense, and in the Nuggets’ case, with the offense primarily running through Jokic as he often operates out of the elbow or the low post, there will tend to be more cutting than driving opportunities for the teammates he’s playmaking for.

Even so, as the Nuggets know full well having been on the receiving end of such treatment, attacking aggressively from the perimeter can put some potent pressure on opposing defenses, and it’s something that Denver has done less of compared with most other teams in the league. They did, however, do it more prior to Jamal Murray’s injury, and year after year he led the team in drives, as seen in the chart below.

While other Nuggets guards such as Morris and Will Barton III (and more recently Bones Hyland) have had some measure of success in attacking the rim on drives, none have been as prolific or effective as Murray in this department. Although he may generally not be the fastest guy on the court, he has a wide array of crafty moves that allow him to snake and hesitate his way to the rim, and has demonstrated increasing creativity and skill at finishing around the basket. And his ability to penetrate was especially instrumental to his outstanding performance in the 2020 playoffs, from which many of the clips below were taken.

I previously mentioned Murray’s two-man game with Jokic almost as a separate category, but of course real basketball is not packaged into such neat little containers, and a single offensive possession contains multitudes of elements. As the video shows, many of Murray’s drives indeed are generated out of pick-and-rolls (PnRs) and dribble handoffs (DHOs) with Jokic. And while it’s not that other players like Morris and Barton didn’t run similar actions, but Murray’s chemistry with Joker is just on a higher plane, and their ability to accurately read the subtle nuances not only of each other but how defenses will anticipate them, and in the case of Murray’s drives his keen sense for using Jokic’s gravity to generate openings, is exceptional.

Isolation Plays At The Perimeter

As the end result of drives is often either a shot right at the basket or a kick-out to an open three-pointer shooter, the value of drives in an NBA landscape where shot selection has shifted towards taking a higher percentage of more efficient attempts around the rim and from three is apparent. Why isolation plays (isos) have value, even when they result in less-efficient mid- or long-range two-point attempts, may be less obvious.

But in the playoffs, where defenses have the time and opportunity to scout and scheme and adjust in order to stymie their opposition’s ability to execute on offense, there often come some times when a team just needs a player or two who can simply go out there and get some buckets. And Jamal Murray is one such tough bucket-getter, including when matched up against some of the best defenders in the league.

When Murray finds himself iso’d on the perimeter, it’s often face-to-face with an elite defensive player. As seen in the clips above, the likes of Kawhi Leonard, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Paul George, Alex Caruso and their ilk of All-Defense-caliber guys often end up guarding Murray, whether by design or because they were switched onto him out of a PnR or DHO with Jokic. And often, this ends up in a “great defense, but even better offense” situation, as Murray uses a variety of spins, crossovers, hesitations and his killer step-back to create just enough space to get off a jumper, floater or scoop shot.

Denver’s lack of players who could generate this level of individual shot creation has been an Achilles heel in Murray’s absence, allowing defenses to focus their efforts almost completely on Jokic and dare the other players to take up the slack. Murray’s return should go a long way not only in punishing defenses when they try to cheat on him (and often even when they don’t), but also in forming a secondary point of gravity to pull players off of Jokic to free him up to fully flex his playmaking prowess.

Post-ups By Guards, And Exploiting Mismatches.

Like isos, post-ups have fallen out of favor in today’s NBA due to their relative inefficiency. And when it comes to guards posting up, the Nuggets have seen a similar pattern to their drives, steadily dwelling at or near the bottom third of the league in post-ups by guards per game, as the chart illustrates.

Again, like drives, this is not automatically a negative, and overall, Denver has been in the top five in post-ups per game for years, and was first last season, almost singlehandedly due to Jokic, as he is consistently near or at the top in both post-ups per game and post-up field goal percentage. And it’s not as if even Jamal Murray is taking a ton of these attempts, as his 0.5 post-ups per game in 2020-21 shows.

But again, keeping the focus on the playoffs, the ability to exploit mismatches is invaluable – something Murray excels at when posting up, as part of the reason his attempts are few is because he picks his battles wisely, making the most of things when he has a size or strength advantage.

There is also value in just being able to throw a different look at a defense, and given the paucity of guard post-ups especially in the current era, having a frontcourt player post up down low can throw a defense off balance with a look they’re not anticipating. And specifically with respect to the Murray and Jokic two-man game, it also positions him nicely for coming back up as the screener for Jokic in “inverted” one-five pick-and-rolls, an unconventional play type which can likewise catch defenses off guard.

It may take some time for Jamal Murray to fully regain his prowess in these areas described above. A lot of the movements involved put a lot of stress and pressure on the knees, and even if he’s technically “fully healthy” now as indications seem to be, for him not only to fully regain his conditioning, but to mentally have the full trust and confidence in his knee not to fail him, will almost certainly be a months-long process from the start of training camp.

But for a Nuggets team that now has the singular goal of winning the NBA championship, it’s all about the playoffs. But it seems reasonable to presume that Murray will again be 100% of himself by next April when the rubber meets the road. And considering internal improvements such as Jokic continuing to reach new heights every season, and Denver’s bolstered roster, when Murray is fully able to deliver on all those things the Nuggets have missed while he’s been sidelined, they should unquestionably be one of the most dangerous teams in the league, with a very real chance to claim the franchise’s first title.