On Monday night, the Denver Nuggets lost their second straight game, this time to the Golden State Warriors, who were led by Stephen Curry’s 52-point output. Much more concerning than a couple of poor regular-season games was seeing star guard Jamal Murray go down with an apparent left knee injury with under a minute to play as Denver attempted to rally from a seven-point deficit.
Murray was injured while driving into traffic but not on impact, as when he planted to take off, his knee buckled and he grabbed at it, falling to the ground in apparent pain before being helped to the locker room after rejecting the wheelchair that was brought out.
Murray has recently lost time due to soreness in the opposite knee, and the Nuggets must be worried about his health. Murray has been incredible of late, scoring 21.3 points per game on the strength of his performance, and was one of the breakout stars of the Orlando Bubble, helping lead Denver to the Western Conference Finals. Murray’s departure would be a major blow to a Nuggets team that had been looking like a Western Conference threat until the last two games. While they’ve managed to have some success in Murray’s absence at times this season, he is such a significant part of their offense as their lead option on the perimeter, any significant knee injury would be a major hit to their hopes of another deep playoff run.
After the game, Nuggets coach Mike Malone didn’t have an update on Murray beyond saying the locker room was “down” and they would wait on the MRI, and noted that the medical staff hadn’t placed him on a minutes restriction coming back from his right knee soreness.
