2 points in the first half (on garbage free throws with 30 seconds remaining), 34 in the second half (17 in each quarter) for Jamal Murray. If he doesn’t watch out, he’s going to develop an earned reputation as a streaky scorer. The kind of guy who can score 15 consecutive points in the blink of an eye before disappearing and throwing up nothing but bricks from all over.
As more evidence, here are his point totals from his last five games: 9, 31, 46, 8, 36. This is only a minor trend, because there was a big chunk of the season where he’s just score 18 every game (besides the game where he scored 48 and invoked the unfeeling wrath of the universe by trying to get 50 at the buzzer in a won game). But it is something to keep an eye on. Is it better to be consistently pretty good or sometimes insanely good and sometimes bad? That’s a whole question that I don’t want to get into. Not right now.
The Nuggets needed all of Murray’s bigdick shots in the fourth quarter to squeak out this win against the Kings. Hopefully with Gary Harris and Paul Millsap and maybe Will Barton coming back, his team would need him to be so heroic just to win a game against one of the worst teams in the West. Yeah, sorry Kings fans. It’s still technically true, even if you got way better this season.