Jokic soaring, Murray still finding way back as Nuggets visit Raptors

One of the marquee nights of the NBA season in Toronto arrives early. No, we don’t mean the Vince Carter jersey retirement ceremony — though that, too, is only days away — we’re talking about the best player on the planet making his lone visit of the year to Canada on Monday, along with one of this country’s premier talents.

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But while three-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokic arrives in sublime form, Kitchener’s Jamal Murray still doesn’t look quite like his old self. While Murray has played much better through two games than he did for Canada at the Olympics in France, he still looks a step slow and has missed three of five layups so far as evidence and a bunch of other two-point looks.

Murray, who starred for the Nuggets on the way to the championship two years ago, missed the final six quarters of Denver’s pre-season with head coach Michael Malone telling reporters after Murray sat the second half of a game that his knee was “feeling funny.”

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The good news for Murray fans is his three-point shot seems to be back. Murray can heat up with the best of them, but had been way off for Canada. So far he’s 5-for-11 on treys and is also getting to the free-throw line at a higher clip than ever before (tiny sample size alert here.)

Denver will surely come in hungry for its first win and Toronto will offer the Nuggets a good shot at picking that up, regardless of which Raptors return to the lineup.

With Jokic dominating, Denver always has a chance. The Serbian superstar notched a triple-double in a tough opening-night loss to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Oklahoma City Thunder and scored 41 points, including a career-high seven three-pointers, in Saturday’s loss at the Los Angeles Clippers (though Ivica Zubac dropped 24 and 15 on him.) Toronto centre Jakob Poeltl is a solid defender, but Jokic is Jokic and has averaged 23 points on 60% shooting from the field in 22 career meetings between the two.

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The team is a work in progress with former MVP Russell Westbrook going 0-for-8 from the field on Saturday and not yet meshing with Murray when the two share the court together (Murray’s usage rate is at an all-time low so far, which makes sense since Westbrook is one of the highest usage players ever.) Christian Braun, who won an NCAA title with Raptors forward Ochai Agbaji at Kansas, is starting for the first time and the team’s bench is markedly different with Westbrook featuring there and young Julian Strawther playing more minutes.

The game will start a busy week for the Raptors, who will have to pick up and head to Charlotte for a game before returning home to host LeBron James, Anthony Davis and the Los Angeles Lakers on Friday and then DeMar DeRozan and the Sacramento Kings for the Carter affair the next night. After that, it will be off to Denver for a rematch with the Nuggets to start a five-game trip that will also included rematches with Sacramento and the Lakers in an odd bit of scheduling.

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AROUND THE RIM

The Raptors listed RJ Barrett as questionable, Immanuel Quickley as doubtful and Kelly Olynyk, Ja’Kobe Walter, Bruce Brown and Ulrich Chomche as out against Denver … Expect the Raptors to tie in a 30th anniversary tribute to the late Brendan Malone, the first head coach in franchise history, to his son’s lone appearance of the year in Toronto coaching the Nuggets … Toronto has outscored opponents in the paint 112-78 so far this season. Part of that was Philadelphia offering little resistance inside, but it was impressive that the Raptors got 56 points in the paint for a second straight game on Saturday since they had to go against four-time defensive player of the year Rudy Gobert and a very good defensive team in the Minnesota Timberwolves … Gradey Dick scored some of those paint points against the T-Wolves and has shown a knack for finishing inside. Dick also scored a career-best 25 points against Minnesota, joining Chris Bosh, Scotti e Barnes and Tracy McGrady as the only Raptors to score 25 before turning 21 years old.

X: @WolstatSun

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