DALLAS — Jamal Murray has a tendency to make situations more difficult on himself.
When he slithers around a ball screen from Nikola Jokic or isolates in open space, his instinct and his dribble often compel him inside the 3-point arc, where contested jump shots are considered equally challenging but less valuable.
When he was a rising prospect in high school, “at first he would make 100 free throws every day,” his former coach Larry Blunt recalled. “And then it got to the point when he would make 100 straight, so he would try to do it with his eyes closed.”
And when he signed the most lucrative contract of his life before this season, the Nuggets guard proceeded to get off to perhaps the slowest start of an NBA career that was already rife with slow starts.
But Murray’s defining trait as a basketball player is his masterful ability to make high-difficulty shots, and by the same token, he also has a propensity for dragging himself out of slumps. His newest obstacle has been less about shooting percentages and more about coming to terms with $209 million worth of scrutiny.
“I’m totally ready for it,” Murray said. “That’s why I literally signed up for it.”
As he finished treatment for a sore knee and returned to an empty locker room late Tuesday night in Dallas, Murray struck a tone noticeably different from the indignant one he had taken three weeks earlier, when a similar scoring performance (34 points against Detroit) had all the makings of a breakout moment. He made a statement with his words that night, entering the Ball Arena press room combatively trash-talking critics before sitting down for postgame questions.
This time, after his 45-point statement for a national TV audience, he reflected on his roller-coaster half-season with a look inward.
“I guarantee I’m talking worse to myself than anybody will,” he said. “I expect a lot better of myself.”
Murray is still determined to prove doubters wrong and harsh narratives premature — a motivational trope as old as time — but as that mission gains traction, he’s feeling more at peace with the criticism he has faced online and in the media this season. Even as his coach grows more and more adamant that it’s overstated and unwarranted.
“I think the microscope on Jamal is a little intense,” an agitated Michael Malone said on Tuesday. “Everybody’s just gotta kind of let the kid breathe a little bit. He’s not perfect. And if you look, I think his overall stats as of recently (have) been very good for us. And he’s out there battling.
“Jamal didn’t pay himself $(52) million (per year). We did that as an organization because we believe in him.”
But as Murray himself pointed out, the four-year, $208.5 million max extension he signed last September “comes with great responsibility.” He has accepted that a bigger paycheck means louder judgment.
“I think I deserve it, to a certain extent,” the 27-year-old said. “So I’m not gonna complain about it. And that’s what people do. They’re gonna talk about what they see. And if they don’t see me performing the way they want me to perform as a fan, they’re gonna let me hear it, or tweet about it or whatever they’re doing. … I mean, I admit I haven’t been playing well. So it’s not like it’s a surprise to me to hear it from everybody else if I’m saying it as well.”
Even so, “it sucks” to deal with, he acknowledged, especially when context such as his recent left knee pain goes ignored. That’s where Malone comes in. He has encouraged Murray and other players this season to avoid internet commentary about them, but it’s a looming specter that he recognizes as unavoidable in many cases for younger generations.
“I can tell guys, ‘Hey, don’t go on social media.’ They’re going to,” he said. “… I’m not gonna be that coach that passes around a box before the game and says ‘Everybody put your cellphone in here.’ These are grown men.”
In the meantime, he’s content to be the guy who adds context to Murray’s circumstances.
The discrepancy between their attitudes in Dallas illuminated a unique dynamic that has developed between them over nine years. Malone gets caught up in the competitive emotions of a game when he’s on the sideline, but he also knows his star point guard to be resilient when shown support and encouragement. When Malone’s in front of a microphone, he’s intentional about being Murray’s most steadfast defender.
“Hopefully it doesn’t have to come to that point,” Murray sheepishly told The Denver Post when asked about the coach’s public loyalty.
“I always talk about the chemistry that we have (as players),” he went on to say. “It’s from the coaching staff, too. When you have the same coaching staff for so many years and the same core for so many years, that helps out. We’ve been a connected group. They know what I’m capable of. The team knows what I’m capable of. Even if I’m struggling, they encourage me. They support me. And that’s really all I need.”
In Malone’s latest defense, he implored people to note the numbers beyond one 45-point night. Murray went into Denver’s road trip this weekend averaging 21.1 points and 5.9 assists in 20 games since the start of December, on 45% shooting from the 3-point line. There’s still lots of room for his 3-point volume to increase, but Malone also understands the pursuit of a confident Murray involves balancing that directive with giving him the freedom to hunt shots where he’s most comfortable. Often, that’s the midrange.
“It’s interesting because the midrange shot has become, like, taboo in the league,” Malone said. “It’s only about layups and 3s. And for us, we’re kind of different from everybody else. We do things our way. … And when you have two really good midrange shooters in Jamal and Nikola, you’re not gonna take that away from them. And Jamal has a knack for taking and making some really tough shots. Obviously, are they sometimes high degree of difficulty or semi-contested? Yes, they are. … Most importantly for me is just Jamal being aggressive. Good things happen when he is aggressive.”
Murray, when asked about his shot selection, told The Post that “sometimes, yeah, I could have shot (the three). Sometimes I could have drove it. It just depends on how I’m feeling. … Sometimes it’s the space I have.”
Then, with a nod to his skeptics, he pointed out: “If I make it, nobody says anything.”
The story of Denver’s first half of the season was the new level of dominance achieved by Jokic. More specifically, it was the questionable sustainability of that dominance.
No 30-point-per-game scorer has won the NBA championship since Michael Jordan in 1996, and no championship-winning team since the 1996 Bulls has had a gap of 10 or more points between its two leading scorers in the regular season. When the Nuggets won the title in 2023, the gap between Jokic and Murray was 4.5 points.
The current difference between them is 10.8 — but it’s inching down from 14.5 on Dec. 12. “We want to help with the scoring load,” Murray said in Dallas.
Murray made it hard on himself with a slow start that invited a chorus of criticism. But as usual, he’s pretty good at playing from behind.
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