The Denver Nuggets were on the brink of elimination from the 2025 NBA playoffs, and one of their stars was dealing with an illness in their do-or-die game.
Guard Jamal Murray was added to the Nuggets’ injury report around 3:30 p.m. ET Thursday due to an illness. He was listed as questionable for Game 6 of the second-round series against the Oklahoma City Thunder, but in an update posted roughly 45 minutes before the scheduled tip-off, the Nuggets said he would be ‘available.’
Boy was he. He started and kicked off the Nuggets’ scoring with a four-point play. He finished with 25 points, grabbed eight rebounds and dished seven assists in 42 minutes of play as the Nuggets forced a Game 7 with a 119-107 win.
Murray didn’t shed much light on what illness he is dealing with, but after the game he said: ‘I was always going to play.’
Game 7 is Sunday (3:30 p.m. ET, ABC) in Oklahoma City.
Murray was the second-leading scorer for Denver in the regular season behind Nikola Jokic, and he’s been the Nuggets’ No. 2 scorer in the playoffs with 22.3 points, 5.3 assists and 4.9 rebounds per game entering Game 6. He averaged 21.4 points per game in the first five contests against Oklahoma City and was coming off a 28-point performance in Denver’s 112-105 Game 5 defeat.
The USA TODAY app gets you to the heart of the news — fast. Download for award-winning coverage, crosswords, audio storytelling, the eNewspaper and more.
(This story has been updated with new information.)