On the heels of Jamal Murray’s offensive explosion, the visiting Denver Nuggets will look to extend their recent dominance over the Atlanta Hawks on Friday.
Denver, which has won eight of nine outings against Atlanta since March 2021, will play the second of a four-game road trip after Murray went for a season-best 52 points in a 135-120 victory over the Indiana Pacers on Wednesday. It’s not easy to overshadow his teammate Nikola Jokic, the league’s leader in rebounds per game (12.6) and assists per game (11.1), but Murray made the three-time NBA MVP an afterthought against Indiana.
“It was good. It was really good,” Murray said of his performance, which saw him drill a career-high 10 3-pointers. “Everything was smooth. … For us, the defense fuels the offense. The difference with us is when we play defense. Once we figure that out, we’ll be really good.”
Denver’s scoring average of 125.1 points per game leads the NBA, while the team has won a franchise-record eight straight road games. Spearheaded by offense from Jokic (28.7 ppg) and Murray (24.7), the Nuggets will try to bring their complementary play into another visiting arena.
“We’ve been (going) on the road for a long time,” Denver head coach David Adelman said. “You figure out what your routine is; you know how to get through it. You’ve been to these cities over and over. You’ve been in the same locker rooms, usually the same hotels. I think that matters. I think experience matters. They’re not afraid of the crowd noise, the moment, the energy of the home team. I think we just play our game.”
Denver will set out to take advantage of an injury-depleted Atlanta group. The Hawks have been without Trae Young since the All-Star point guard suffered a right knee MCL sprain on Oct. 29. The team announced on Saturday that Young will be re-evaluated in two weeks. Offseason addition Kristaps Porzingis is averaging 18.7 points in 12 games, but the big man has missed the last four with an illness.
The Hawks defeated the Philadelphia 76ers on Sunday to move five games above .500 for the first time since the end of the 2020-21 season, but they have since dropped two in a row to the Detroit Pistons and Los Angeles Clippers. Atlanta’s injury woes worsened before its 23-point home loss to Los Angeles, as breakout star Jalen Johnson sat with right calf tightness.
Without Johnson, who is averaging career highs of 23.2 points, 10 rebounds and 7.3 assists per game to lead the squad in each category, Atlanta struggled to find its offensive rhythm in the loss. Johnson, in his fifth season, was listed as questionable to play against Denver on the team’s injury report.
“We have to find it collectively the same way we’ve done it with Jalen,” Hawks coach Quin Snyder said of finding a consistent scorer. “He’s been a catalyst for us. We had other guys (on Wednesday). Dyson (Daniels) was able to get into the lane, Nickeil (Alexander-Walker) got in the lane, but the issue for us is our spacing wasn’t good. We weren’t able to connect like we needed to.”
If Johnson can’t suit up on Friday, the Hawks will rely on Alexander-Walker, whose average of 20.4 points per game is the best of his seven-year career.
