Ramona Shelburne, Senior Writer at ESPN June 8, 2023 at 2:15 am ET
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- Senior Writer for ESPN.com
- Spent seven years at the Los Angeles Daily News
MIAMI — There are a lot of old basketball videos circulating on social media this time of year. Interviews from years ago suddenly sound prescient based on what’s happening game-to-game in the NBA Finals. The big shots from previous finals mirror a key move from the current series.
Footage of Denver Nuggets stars Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokic playing together at the 2014 Nike Hoops Summit in Portland, Oregon recently circulated on Instagram. Neither of them were the main protagonists in this game – the big men Karl-Anthony Towns and Jahlil Okafor were. But Murray and Jokic played together on the world team, and there are games between them that are very similar to what they did against the Miami Heat during those finals.
“I didn’t see the clip,” Jokic told ESPN after he and Murray became the first teammates in Finals history to record a triple-double in the Nuggets’ 109-94 win in Game 3 Wednesday night at the Kaseya Center same game gave them a 2-1 series lead. “But I remember we played together and I didn’t speak English at the time.”
Jokic deleted all his social media accounts a few years ago, but he and Murray have long since spoken the same language on and off the pitch.
“A lot of guys play together,” said Nuggets coach Michael Malone. “I think these two guys play for and against each other and they understand each other so well.”
Wednesday’s performance was a highlight for one of the NBA’s best two-man games.
There was the pick-and-roll: Jokic hit 32 on-ball screens for Murray in Game 3, making it his most hits in a game this season and his second-most since joining the teammate in 2016, as can be seen from the recording of Second Spectrum data.
There was the dribble handover that resulted in 15 points – after only 14 points were scored in the first two finals games combined.
Friday
Game 4: Nuggets at Heat, 8:30 p.m
Monday 12 June
Game 5: Heat at Nuggets, 8:30 p.m
Thursday 15 June
Game 6: Nuggets at Heat, 8:30 p.m. (if required)
Sunday June 18th
Game 7: Heat at Nuggets, 8pm (if required)
*All times Eastern
More: Playoff schedule, news, more
According to a study by ESPN Stats & Information, there was even a great defense as they had 31 throws combined in Game 3, of which the Heat only managed seven.
Jokic finished the game with 32 points, 21 rebounds and 10 assists. Murray had 34 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists. It was clinical. It was beautiful too.
“I would say it’s a confidence and a feeling,” Murray said. “That’s the best way for me to put it. It’s not really about X and O. It’s just about reading the game and trusting that the other player will make the right play. When he throws it at me, he knows and expects what he’s about to see from me, and he knows the mood I’m in.
“If there’s anything, we’ll go. If not, we don’t enforce it. He makes difficult shots look easy and he has been doing that for a very long time.”
“I think consistency isn’t talked about enough,” Murray added.
Earlier in that series, heat guard Kyle Lowry compared Jokic and Murray to the Hall of Fame tandem of Tim Duncan and Tony Parker. That was great praise and justified. But it took the basketball world a while to digest that, considering the two San Antonio Spurs have won five championships together.
This is just Jokic and Murray’s first Finals appearance, and they need two more wins against an increasingly dangerous Miami team to clinch their first championship.
But one player who was in Portland nine years ago when the early days of the Jokic-Murray tandem formed agrees completely.
“They’re like old-school Spurs,” Towns told ESPN. “They just lead you further down.”
Frankly, Towns said he couldn’t claim to have seen the duo’s potential during the week they spent at that camp as teammates on the World Team. He recalls thinking Murray was special because he saw how strong he was spiritually and admired how he meditated before games. Towns said he even tried to get the Minnesota Timberwolves to sign Murray when they got a chance in 2016.
But fate had other plans for Jokic and Murray and these finals will show that.
“They’ve been together a long time,” Towns said. “That’s why there’s such good chemistry between them. Every team that wins championships has a stability that has allowed them to adapt to one another at championship level.”