The Denver Nuggets’ Jamal Murray had been anxious to make his postseason return.
The last two seasons, Murray was on the sidelines, recovering from a torn left anterior cruciate ligament, as the Nuggets appeared in the playoffs.
“That was tough, just sitting down watching,” Murray said.
Through two games of the Nuggets’ current Western Conference first-round series against the Minnesota Timberwolves, Murray has made the most of his opportunity.
Denver is up 2-0 in the series, which continues with Game 3 on Friday in Minneapolis.
In the first two games, Murray is averaging 32.0 points and 6.5 assists with 5.5 rebounds. He is coming off a 40-point performance in the Nuggets’ 122-113 Game 2 win Wednesday.
It was Murray’s fifth game of at least 40 points in 35 career postseason games. In 410 regular-season games, Murray has just four games with 40 or more points.
The Nuggets are up 2-0 in a postseason series for just the fifth time in their franchise history.
While Denver has won each of their previous series after winning the first two games, only once have the Nuggets led a series 3-0. That came in the second round against the Dallas Mavericks in 2009 when they moved on with a 4-1 series victory.
Denver coach Michael Malone said he does not want his team to relent.
“What we have to do is not be satisfied,” Malone said. “If you’re going to be a great team, you’ve got to be selfish. Be selfish. … Let’s go up and get Game 3. Let’s not be complacent.”
The Timberwolves have never won a series after falling into an 0-2 hole, although they have won Game 3 three times in five previous tries with such a deficit.
In Game 2, Denver jumped out to a 21-point lead before Minnesota came back to jump ahead 89-87 going into the fourth quarter.
Timberwolves’ guard Anthony Edwards said his team needed to take lessons from Wednesday’s loss and apply them quickly.
“We can’t wait until we go down 20 or 15 in the first half and try to figure out how to get back into the game,” Edwards said. “If we found something (Wednesday), we’ve got to stick with it in the first quarter (Friday).”
Edwards is coming off a 41-point performance in the Game 2 loss; he was 14 of 23 from the field and hit six 3-pointers in 10 attempts.
If Minnesota is to get back in the series, it will need a turnaround from big man Karl-Anthony Towns.
So far in the series, Towns is just 8 of 27 (29.6 percent) from the field, including 3 of 12 (25.0 percent) on 3-pointers.
“I trust my ability,” Towns said. “I work too hard, so I’m not losing confidence. I ain’t losing anything like that. I’m going to take my shot every time.”
Towns came into the playoffs shooting 54.6 percent from the field and 44.1 percent from 3-point range over the last six games of the regular season plus the two games in the NBA play-in tournament.
–Field Level Media