Jamal Murray scored 23 of his 37 points in the fourth quarter, propelling the Denver Nuggets to a 108-103 come-from-behind win over the Los Angeles Lakers on Thursday night for a 2-0 lead in the Western Conference finals.
Nikola Jokic had his 13th playoff triple-double with 23 points, 17 rebounds and a dozen assists for the Nuggets, who have never been this close to reaching the NBA finals in their history.
Game 3 is Saturday night at Crypto.com Arena, where LeBron James and the Lakers are 8-0 in the playoffs. Murray missed 12 of his 17 shots through three quarters but found his touch in the fourth, going 6 for 7, including four 3-pointers and fueling a 15-1 run that gave Denver a 96-84 lead.
Just like in Game 1, the Lakers didn’t go down easily. They pulled to three points on Austin Reaves’ jumper before Murray sank two free throws with 12 seconds left and Bruce Brown stole the ball from James, then dribbled out the final 8 seconds.