Murray carries Nuggets to win
Guard scores 42 to force Game 6; Blazers lose Lillard
Jamal Murray scored 33 of his 42 points in a second half where he played every minute and the Nuggets avoided elimination by beating the Jazz 117-107 on Tuesday night in Game 5 of the Western Conference first-round series in Lake Buena Vista, Florida.
The third-seeded Nuggets trail the sixth-seeded Jazz 3-2 with Game 6 on Thursday.
Murray was unstoppable down the stretch in nearly matching his 50point effort in Game 4. He hit 17 of 26 shots and had eight assists, including a pass to Nikola Jokic for a 3-pointer with 23.6 seconds remaining that sealed the win.
The dynamic tandem of Murray and Jokic clearly weren’t ready to leave the NBA bubble just yet. Jokic had it going early as he scored 21 of his 31 points in the the first quarter. Murray took over late.
With the game tied at 101, Murray scored nine straight for the Nuggets to help the Nuggets gain some separation. The trailed by as many as 15 in the third quarter.
Donovan Mitchell had 30 points. The sharpshooter is averaging 37.6 points over the five games.
The Nuggets turned in their best third period of the series when they needed it most. Trailing 63-54 at halftime, they outscored the Jazz 28-23. The Jazz had dominated the third quarter by a 142-92 margin before Tuesday.
Knee sidelines Lillard: All-Star guard Damian Lillard has a sprained right knee and will be sidelined Wednesday when the Trail Blazers play a win-or-else Western Conference first-round game against the Lakers.
The Blazers trail the best-of-seven series 3-1, and now will play without their leading scorer.
Lillard got hurt while driving to the basket and drawing a foul with 7:16 left in the third quarter of Monday’s loss to the top-seeded Lakers. The knee seemed to buckle as Lillard made an awkward landing and he was clearly limping as he made his way to the foul line.
During a timeout that was called about a minute later, Lillard briefly made his way into an area of the arena that isn’t visible from the court. He returned to the bench before the timeout was over and remained in the game for about another minute, before departing for good with 5:18 left in the third.
An MRI performed Monday night was inconclusive, prompting the Blazers to schedule the second one Tuesday — after which the sprain was diagnosed.
Lillard was the unanimous winner of the MVP award during the seeding games portion of the restart, the eight-game stretch that got the Blazers into the play-in round against the Grizzlies. He’s averaged 30.5 points per game inside the Disney bubble since the season restarted July 30, that average second in the league only behind the Rockets’ James Harden — who’s averaging 33 points per contest.
Lillard willed the Blazers into the postseason with one dazzling performance after another. The Blazers won their final three seeding games by a total of seven points; Lillard had 51, 61 and 42 points in those games.
Porzingis out again: Center Kristaps Porzingis missed Game 5 of the Mavericks series against the Clippers on Tuesday night because of right knee soreness.
It was the second straight game the 7-foot-3 Latvian was sidelined. He was ruled out a few hours before the game Tuesday night after being a late scratch for Game 4.