NUGGETS: Point guards Murray, Mudiay will likely have their share of growing pains this season.
Coach Michael Malone pulled Jamal Murray aside at practice Thursday to remind his young point guard of the importance of having a short memory throughout an NBA season.
“You’re going to get your (butt) kicked a lot this year,” Malone bluntly told Murray. “And you’re going to be a lot better for it.”
Malone now has no choice but to let Murray, the Nuggets’ 20year-old starting point guard, work through inevitable growing pains during a season with playoff potential. After officially waiving veteran Jameer Nelson on Thursday, Denver has handed the keys of its potent offense to Murray and fellow youngster Emmanuel Mudiay.
“At some point, you have to give them that responsibility (and) let them fail,” Malone said.
Wednesday’s season-opening loss at Utah was the first step. And it yielded mixed results.
Both players scored eight points, with Murray shooting 2of-6 from the floor and Mudiay making 3-of-8 shots. Murray dialed up his trademark bowand-arrow 3-pointer celebration during a third quarter in which he scored all of his points while the Nuggets built a 15-point lead.
Mudiay, who declined interview requests Friday, didn’t commit a turnover Wednesday after averaging nearly four per game during the preseason.
But Will Barton also had significant playing time at point guard at Utah. Murray played less than three minutes in the fourth quarter and Mudiay saw about five minutes, as the Nuggets’ offensive execution turned stagnant while Utah seized the lead and pulled away to a 106-96 victory.
“It was a lot of one-on-one and stuff like that,” Murray said. “We’ve got to eliminate that and get back to moving the defense.”
Murray doesn’t remember when he received official word that he would start the opener, though clues dropped last week when he was a first-teamer in Denver’s preseason finale against the Oklahoma City Thunder and for an open scrimmage at Fort Carson.
Malone acknowledges nobody “ran away with that race” for the starting point guard job. But the coach cited Murray’s ability to shoot and space the floor with the Nuggets’ other starters as reasons he won the job, as well as how Murray performed down the stretch last season.
“He showed that he’s not scared of the moment,” Malone said of Murray.
Murray insists that moving back to point guard is not a massive adjustment; he played the position until arriving at Kentucky in 2015. And because big men Nikola Jokic and Paul Millsap are such savvy facilitators, Denver doesn’t necessarily need a prototypical point guard.
Still, Malone said Murray is learning how to read defenses in order to identify when he should aggressively look to score with the ball in his hands and when to distribute to a teammate.
Mudiay, meanwhile, needs to play with pace, take care of the ball and defend effectively, the coach said.
Murray acknowledged that Nelson’s departure from the Nuggets resulted in “mixed emotions.” Murray praised Nelson for his unselfishness on the court and encouraging words off it.
Yet Murray also knew the roster move meant he and Mudiay would officially get the keys to this Nuggets offense — growing pains and all.
“We’re excited about the future for both of those guys,” Malone said. “We’re going to live with their mistakes and let them play through their mistakes.”