Nuggets' Jamal Murray joins 50-point all-time record only done twice in NBA history

Billy Heyen

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Nuggets' Jamal Murray joins 50-point all-time record only done twice in NBA history image

Jamal Murray couldn't cool down. At one point, the Denver Nuggets' scoring guard blew on his hand, but it didn't work.

Murray kept shooting and scoring all the way to the end of a brilliant 52-point outing on Wednesday night, and in the process, he helped Denver make NBA history.

This was the third different Nuggets player to score 50 points in a game this season. Nikola Jokic and Aaron Gordon have both done it, too.

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NBA guru Nate Duncan shared that it's only the third time that has happened in the NBA.

The first came back in 1961-62 for the Los Angeles Lakers. Two obvious names did it: Elgin Baylor and Jerry West. There was also a 50-point game that season from the immortal Rudy Larusso.

Then it was the 2018-19 Golden State Warriors becoming a member of this exclusive club. Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Kevin Durant each reached 50 points in that season.

And now it's this season's Nuggets.

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Denver can take a sort of good, sort of bad omen out of this place in history.

In 1962, the Lakers made the NBA Finals, but they lost in seven games to the Boston Celtics.

In 2019, the Warriors made the NBA Finals, but they lost in six games to the Toronto Raptors.

The Nuggets would surely love to make the NBA Finals. They'd also prefer to win the last game of the season, rather than lose it.

They aren't thought of as being quite as star-studded as many teams in the NBA, but Murray and Gordon have both proved that, at their best, they can provide great support for Jokic. They've already won one championship together, and now they're chasing another.

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Editorial Team