{"id":133088,"date":"2025-04-07T13:00:07","date_gmt":"2025-04-07T17:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=133088"},"modified":"2025-04-07T13:00:07","modified_gmt":"2025-04-07T17:00:07","slug":"nuggets-losing-ground-in-midst-of-jamal-murrays-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/04\/07\/nuggets-losing-ground-in-midst-of-jamal-murrays-injury\/","title":{"rendered":"Nuggets Losing Ground In Midst of Jamal Murray’s Injury"},"content":{"rendered":"

If going on a four-game losing streak was bad, the timing of a four-game losing streak could make things worse. That’s\u00a0<\/span>the reality the Denver Nuggets face<\/span><\/a>\u00a0while they await\u00a0<\/span>Jamal Murray<\/span><\/a>‘s return from injury. Denver is in the middle of a four-game slide, occurring at the worst possible time in the season. It’s so much so that the Nuggets face the possibility of sinking to the play-in picture in this final week of the regular season instead of having a week off before round one kicks off. Denver does not want this; however, it might happen if they don’t pick themselves up fast.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nuggets Losing Ground In Midst of Jamal Murray’s Injury<\/h2>\n

Denver Nuggets Are Going the Wrong Way While Jamal Murray’s Injury Could Mean Trouble Come Playoff Time<\/h3>\n

The alarm bells are sounding off for the Nuggets in loo of their terrible last week, and the fact that the\u00a0<\/span>Los Angeles Lakers have<\/span><\/a> the three seed in hand, for the time being, not to mention the tiebreaker over Denver, who is now in fourth place. That fourth seed isn’t nearly as comfortable as it might sound. The space between the fourth and eighth seed is razor thin\u2014almost non-existent. The\u00a0<\/span>Memphis Grizzlies<\/span><\/a>\u00a0have the eighth seed, and the Minnesota Timberwolves have the seventh\u2014both teams are only 0.5 games back from the Nuggets. <\/span><\/p>\n

A play-in scenario would be uncharted waters for Denver, considering they have never finished without a secured playoff spot since the play-in tournament was introduced. The uncertainty surrounding Murray and his injury makes this scenario more scary.<\/p>\n

Michael Malone Paints a Bleak Picture<\/h3>\n

Murray’s hamstring issues have kept him out of Denver’s last five games, and he’s expected to miss the team’s remaining games on the regular schedule. It’s <\/span>bad<\/span> news that\u00a0<\/span>Nuggets head coach Michael Malone is concerned about it<\/span><\/a>, and he voiced his concerns before the Nuggets lost to the Indiana Pacers 125-120 over the weekend.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cJamal\u2019s hurt. It\u2019s not careful. He\u2019s hurt. So there\u2019s a big difference,” <\/em>Malone said. “Careful is if a guy can play and you want to be smart. We\u2019re not in a situation to do that. There are six teams vying for four spots. So if Jamal Murray is not out there, it\u2019s not careful. It\u2019s because he literally just is not able to play at the moment.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

“Hopefully he\u2019s able to be back by [the playoffs]. This has been a weird one. It was day-to-day, day-to-day, and then next thing you know, it\u2019s not day-to-day.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Nuggets Need<\/em> Murray, Or Playoffs Will Fail<\/h3>\n

Nikola Joki\u0107<\/span><\/a>\u00a0is <\/span>simply<\/span> phenomenal, and he’s been playing that way in Murray’s absence. That said, Denver’s playoff hopes are bleak without Murray, especially if they fall to the play-in seeding. One game could end it all. Unfortunately, the Nuggets don’t have the level of depth necessary to contend without Murray, even if Joki\u0107 averages a triple-double every night.<\/span><\/p>\n

Malone didn’t appear overly sure or confident when discussing his point guard’s return, which makes for a shaky outlook for Denver’s final week of the season. They face two teams fighting for positioning: the Sacramento Kings, the Grizzlies, and the Houston Rockets to close the season out. Denver needs much more than just avoiding the play-in; they need Murray back on the floor before it’s too late.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a9 Troy Taormina-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If going on a four-game losing streak was bad, the timing of a four-game losing streak could make things worse. That’s\u00a0the reality the Denver Nuggets face\u00a0while they await\u00a0Jamal Murray‘s return from injury. Denver is in the middle of a four-game slide, occurring at the worst possible time in the season. It’s so much so that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5081,"featured_media":133089,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20,1608,62],"tags":[109,72],"class_list":["post-133088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nuggets","category-basketball","category-nba","tag-jamal-murray","tag-nikola-jokic"],"modified_by":"Aaron J Zacharias","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5081"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133088"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":133100,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133088\/revisions\/133100"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}