Jamal Murray scored a season-high 45 in the Denver Nuggets’ win

DALLAS – After Jamal Murray’s best offensive performance of the season, Denver Nuggets coach Michael Malone defended his star guard, who admittedly struggled to start the season.

“I think the microscope on Jamal is a little intense,” Malone said after Murray scored a season-high 45 points Tuesday night to lead the Nuggets to a 118-99 victory over the Dallas Mavericks. “Everybody’s just got to let the kid breathe a little bit. He’s not perfect. And if you look, I think his overall stats recently, he’s been very good for us.”

Murray was sensational from the opening tip on Tuesday night, scoring 19 points on 7-of-9 shooting in the first quarter. The Nuggets’ typical rotation has Murray rested midway through the first quarter, but he made sure that wasn’t the case when he sensed he was in a groove.

“Don’t take me out,” Murray told Malone on a couple of occasions early in the game, both after he made 3-pointers.

Fortunately, Malone granted this request, allowing Murray to play the entire quarter. Murray finished the first half with 32 points — two shy of his last season high — on 12-of-15 shooting.

“You’re just in the zone and it’s fun,” said Murray, who finished 18-of-26 from the field and 5-of-9 from 3-point range while outscoring the Dallas starting lineup by a 45-39 margin. “Your team knows you’re in the zone. They’re trying to find you, too. The ball has energy and it found me today and I was just rolling, so I wasn’t looking at it too much. I was just flowing with the game and play for free.

“If I miss a shot or turn it over, it’s on to the next game. And it’s nice to play a little free-spirited, you know what I’m saying? Sometimes you can have so many negatives in the game where it just goes from one player to another, and today it was just the opposite.”

As for Malone, there has been far too much negativity this season regarding Murray, who signed a four-year, $208 million max contract extension in the offseason.

The Nuggets signed Murray, one of the stars of the franchise’s only NBA title run in 2023, to the max deal despite playing poorly by his standards in last season’s playoffs and for Team Canada in the Olympics over the summer. He is averaging 19.8 points on 44.7% shooting this season, his lowest scoring average since 2019-20 and lowest field goal percentage since 2018-19.

“I think Jamal has gotten a lot of heat this year,” Malone said. “Jamal Murray didn’t pay himself $(52) million (per season). We did that as an organization because we believe in him.

“We’re not going to win our first franchise championship without Jamal Murray averaging 21, 10 and 6. You know what I mean? So I understand everybody wants our guys to play perfect. Everybody wants us to be undefeated . It doesn’t happen like every player goes through ups and downs. The most important thing for Jamal is to know that everyone in that locker room — coaches, players — has his back and we have to ride with him.”

Murray, who averaged 17.8 points on 42% shooting as the Nuggets stumbled to an 11-10 start, said he believed he deserved the criticism “to a degree.”

“That comes with the responsibility,” Murray said. “I’m all for it. That’s why I literally signed up for it. … I’ll admit that I haven’t been playing well, so it’s not like it’s a surprise to me to hear from everybody else , if I say so too.”

But Malone was adamant that Murray’s fifth career 40-point feat should be characterized as a continuation of an outstanding stretch, not an extreme performance.

Malone pointed to Murray’s production during Denver’s run of 13 wins over the past 18 games. Murray has averaged 21.9 points while shooting 47.3% from the field and 43.3% from 3-point range during that span.

“I’ve had his back and I’ll always have his back,” Malone said. “It was just so rewarding to see him have the night he had tonight and how excited his teammates were for him to go out and score 45 in a very efficient way.

“It wasn’t just a great game tonight. Jamal Murray has played really good basketball for us the last 18 games. It’s not a small sample size and we just have to keep him moving in the right direction.”