Murray trusts his pedigree.
Jamal Murray was straightforward when he spoke at Nuggets practice on Friday.
The Denver guard, coming off the best regular season of his career, talked about how he wants to approach the postseason and what it takes to stay locked in when the stakes go up.
There was no tension in his voice and no big speech about motivation. Just a player who has been through enough playoffs to know what matters.
"Just playing free. Don't overthink it. Just play free. Just know it's competitive basketball, we're gonna have fun. We're not new here. We're just gonna do what we normally do and come out with the right mindset, and let everything take care of itself."
That is the confidence of a guy who already has a championship ring on his finger and is playing better than he ever has.
A Career Season Behind Him
Murray finished the regular season with the best numbers he has ever posted, averaging 25.4 points, 7.1 assists and 4.4 rebounds while shooting 48.3 percent from the field and 43.5 percent from deep.
He earned his first All-Star nod and was a driving force behind the Nuggets' late-season surge that saw Denver rattle off 12 straight wins to close the year and lock up the No. 3 seed at 54-28.
Now the Nuggets open the first round against the sixth-seeded Minnesota Timberwolves, who went 49-33 and are making their third straight postseason trip.
This is the third time in four years that Denver and Minnesota will meet in a playoff series, so there is plenty of history between these two rosters and neither side needs much of an introduction.
Murray Has Owned This Matchup
If the regular season is anything to go by, Murray is more than ready for this one.
He averaged 31.5 points per game against Minnesota this season and shot 43.6 percent from three across all four meetings.
He went for 43 in the opener back in October, dropped 35 on Christmas Day alongside Nikola Jokic's 56-point triple-double and even in Denver's lone loss to the Wolves on March 1 he still scored 25 on efficient shooting.
The Nuggets took the season series 3-1 and Murray was a big reason why.
Built for the Moment
Murray is no stranger to the postseason spotlight. He has averaged 23.7 points and 6.0 assists across 79 career playoff games, and his best stretches in the postseason have been as good as anything in the league.
He put up multiple 50-point games during the Nuggets' 2023 championship run and remains one of five players in NBA history to do that in a single postseason.
The conversation around Denver usually starts and ends with Jokic, and that is fair.
But Murray has always been the other half that makes the Nuggets truly dangerous, and heading into this series he is playing the best basketball of his life while talking about staying loose.
Game 1 tips off Saturday afternoon at Ball Arena.