Jamal Murray questionable against Clippers due to hamstring injury

By the end of practice Wednesday, Jamal Murray was in sweats and a long-sleeve 2023 NBA champions T-shirt, working on his 3-pointer in a corner of the gym. Six days after aggravating his hamstring in Cleveland, the injury was still lingering enough to limit him. Not entirely, though.

“He was able to go through portions of practice today, which was great to have him out there,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said. “He got some good work in yesterday in terms of treatment and player development. And then we’ll see how he feels from his work today. I’d say for Friday night, he’s still going to be listed as questionable.”

The Nuggets (12-10) will host the Clippers in a make-up game Friday after both teams, which have already seen each other twice this season, were eliminated early from the NBA Cup. In the meantime, Denver has an unusual stretch of four days between games for the second time in as many months. The team returned from a three-game road trip late Sunday night and had a “blackout day” on Monday, meaning players and staff were to stay home and stay away from the arena. On Tuesday, players came in for individual treatment and PD work.

“It’s so weird. This week, two games in seven days. Next week, two in seven. And then the Grinch comes out; we play five in seven the week of Christmas,” Malone said. “So when you know that, you have to be smart about the approach. … Today, we got after it.”

Murray (right hamstring inflammation) has missed the last two games — both ends of a back-to-back that Denver split last weekend in Washington and Atlanta.

After a 141-111 win over the Hawks on Sunday, Malone anticipated Murray’s injury being one that could take more time to heal, unlike the ankle injury that sidelined backup center Dario Saric.

“Dario just rolled his ankle the other day (practicing) over at Georgetown,” Malone said then. “I wouldn’t say severe. … We have such a long break now between our next game, I fully expect Dario will be back, and I think there’s a good chance that Jamal will be back, too. But we’ll have to wait and see. Jamal’s, we have to be a little bit more cautious with his.”

The Nuggets’ emphasis in their first full-fledged practice of the week, unsurprisingly, was defense. They rank 16th in the league in points allowed per 100 possessions, whereas their offense is seventh.

Defensive rebounding in particular resurfaced as a major issue on the road. Denver allowed 34 offensive boards combined in the back-to-back. Opponents are averaging 15.5 second-chance points per game. Only the Wizards and Thunder are allowing more.

“There are three areas we really have to continue to focus on (defensively): transition, paint and rebounding. Those three areas are just really hurting us,” Malone said. “We’re bottom-five in all those categories. And my message was this: We’re giving up 116.8 points per game. If we give up one less (basket) in transition, one less blow-by and not trap the box in the half-court, and one less offensive rebound, we can get down to 110.8. It’s right there. It’s hanging in the air. We just have to do a better job of taking it.”

Braun on Jokic’s media comments

Nikola Jokic’s tongue-in-cheek comment over the weekend suggesting that pay cuts could motivate the Nuggets made waves in national media, but what he says publicly isn’t as important to the team as what he says privately, according to Christian Braun. Even if what Jokic said was brutally honest.

“I think people saw it. … I don’t know that we listen to that or make note of that,” Braun said. “We have talks within our team that Nikola speaks up, and we have talks within our team that DeAndre (Jordan) speaks up, Russ (Westbrook) speaks up, coach speaks up, whoever it is. We’ve got a lot of guys that speak up. And we need more of that. And there’s places we can improve on that, too. But we don’t watch too much of the media stuff. We try to listen more to what we talk about in-house and what we talk about in our meetings. But I mean, obviously, the comment is right. We’re on the court; we have to produce. It doesn’t matter what it is. There’s no excuses. We need to win games.

“We have the best player in the world, a top-10 player of all time on our team. And he’s playing great, and he’s out there every single game playing really well. We need to help him.”

Braun emphasized that Denver’s ongoing struggle to guard opponents isn’t a coaching or scheme issue, and he echoed much of what Malone said about the Nuggets being a few avoidable mistakes away from major improvements.

And as for that claim that Jokic has cracked the top 10?

“I’ll let people argue (about) that,” Braun said, “but in my opinion, he’s right there.”

Want more Nuggets news? Sign up for the Nuggets Insider to get all our NBA analysis.