Michael Adams’ heart did a one-handed push shot right past his chest, then sank straight into his hands.
There he was, baseline royalty, right under the basket. First time back at Ball Arena in about six years, and Jamal Murray lands like a dead fish three feet in front of him, rolling on the floor.
Suddenly, in a cruel twist of irony and a crueler twist of an ankle, one of the greatest shooters in Nuggets history had a front-row seat to watch the Blue Arrow, his spiritual successor, writhe in agony.
“I just heard him say, ‘Oh my God,’” Adams, the Nuggets’ 3-point ace from 1987-91, said of the Blue Arrow’s sprain just before halftime, the one that cast a pall over the Nuggets’ scrappy 103-97 victory over the Miami Heat in an NBA Finals rematch.
“So when (Murray) grabbed his ankle, I was like, ‘OK, it’s his ankle … it wasn’t his knee.’”
Join the club, brother.
I know what you’re thinking: Man, the Lakers are next. Is there a better, sweeter feeling for Nuggets faithful than watching Murray prop his feet up on the couch in The House Kobe Built and drop daggers all over Tinseltown? Especially on LeBron’s big night? Over his last six regular-season appearances against the Lake Show, the Blue Arrow’s averaged 23.5 points, 6.3 assists and 3.2 treys.
But by the same token, did you see the anguish on the guy’s face as he staggered off the baseline and limped to the locker room? Why push your luck? Especially when that luck is as fickle as Jamal’s?
“Injuries happen,” Adams told me, “but in this situation, you want the Nuggets to be healthy toward the end of the season … if he’s not ready to go, they’ll sit him down and let him get healthy. They’ve still got some time (to finish) the season with him on the floor.”
This ain’t about want-to. Or toughness. Murray was raised like a basketball ninja in chilly Ontario, a childhood montage that included push-ups in the snow and balancing cups of hot tea on his thigh during squats. The Arrow would sooner swim through shark-infested waters wearing a chum suit than accept defeat.
Still, if I’m Nuggets coach Michael Malone, I’m overriding Murray’s inner Bruce Lee and reaching for the bubble wrap.
The NBA Playoffs, the land of bright lights, big stages and swollen egos where No. 27 reigns supreme, is seven weeks away yet. The No. 1 seed in the West is a heck of a target, yes, and the Nuggets went into Friday trailing the Wolves by a game-and-a-half.
Everything’s on the table now. Including disaster. And you sure as heck don’t get a parade in June by redlining Murray in early March.
“When Jamal realizes, ‘Hey, man, we’ve got 23 games to go, this (ankle) is not feeling great right now,’ I think it’s great for him to realize being cautious right now is probably the really prudent decision,” Malone said late Thursday night. “And that shows also (his) maturity. He’s growing and realizing that we (need him long-term) …
“(People insist), ‘You should be the No. 1 seed.’ Yeah, that’d be great. I want to be healthy. Because I know if we’re healthy, that we can beat anybody, anywhere.”
Dang straight.
Murray ended the first quarter Thursday by draining a 3-pointer at the buzzer with four Miami hands in his face. He ended the second in the bowels of Ball Arena, getting treatment on a right ankle that got rolled during an accidental collision with teammate Aaron Gordon.
The tumble happened, as kismet would have it, right in front of Adams, now 61 and working with the Washington Wizards, and his son.
“I actually wanted to bring my All-Star ring here to let him hold onto it until he actually made one,” said Adams, who represented Washington at the NBA’s mid-winter classic back in 1992. “And to (tell Murray), ‘You deserve to be on an All-Star team.’ I didn’t do it. But I wanted to.”
In his salad days, Adams was Steph Curry before Steph, 5-foot-10 with a funky release, cold-blooded to the core, a shooter ahead of his time. Especially once ex-Nuggets coach Doug Moe gave him the green light.
“I’m a big fan of Murray — obviously, him and Nikola (Jokic) are just out-of-this-world players,” said Adams, who averaged 18.2 points and 7.2 dimes over four seasons with Denver. “I love watching him play. I was just telling my son, ‘If I was backing up Jamal Murray, and he just went out of the game, I’d be happy to be on the floor with the rest of those guys right now.’”
He’d be happier still to see Murray rest that ankle until the Arrow’s closer to 100%. And like Malone, he’d rather have the Nuggets healthy come mid-April than exhaust their stars in a seeding chase.
“You want (those starters) on the floor, but health is No. 1,” Adams said. “I think the Nuggets can beat anybody on the road (in the playoffs) if they had to.”
Nine solid weeks of Murray in the spring is worth its weight in gold. At least 29 pounds of it, last we checked.