The guard for the Denver Nuggets, Jamal Murray, has long enjoyed babbling about how he was destined to make huge shots. Growing up in Kitchener, Ontario, Murray would do push-ups in the snow and ice basketball drills to get ready for his big break. When Murray, the Nuggets’ seventh-round draft choice in 2016, came in Denver, head coach Mike Malone gave him the go-ahead to shoot. Maybe it was permission given voluntarily. Nights when Murray scored explosively—and nights when he missed, a lot—rewarded his team’s faith. Even worse, he frequently missed three-point chances in favour of difficult two-point shots, the most inefficient method of scoring, and he was terrible from deep when he first started. On the other hand, he was dogged and inventive, constantly breaking screens, working on his ball-handling abilities, and perfecting his nimble passing. Clearly, he continued firing.

Murray was fortunate in that he wasn’t asked to lead the team. He wasn’t even required to truly carry the ball up the court, even though he was a point guard. Nikola Jokić, the Nuggets’ centre and a promising young player, has the ability to pass the ball more efficiently than any big man in NBA history. Like Murray, the Nuggets could be excruciatingly uneven; they also had obvious flaws. However, Jokić and Murray developed a rapport. It was quite unusual to find two rising stars who were equally adept at running the pick-and-roll. As per PBPstats.com, Jokić and Murray had the third-highest number of assists of any NBA partnership during the regular season with 119. Murray gave Jokić 116, which was good for eighth place. None of the other pairs even came close to matching their total. They settled into a routine and learned to anticipate one other’s movements.

Perhaps only Murray and Jokić could have foreseen Thursday night’s spectacle after the club lost 3-1 to the Utah Jazz in the first round of the playoffs: In the fourth game of the Western Conference Finals, Murray drove low with a push-ahead dribble, barely but expertly controlling the ball as he went straight at LeBron James. James jumped, right arm outstretched, a wall rising, while Murray climbed to the rim. As he landed, Murray completed the layup with his right hand after moving the ball to his left and swinging it under and behind James. If James was paying attention, it was because it was an exact replica of a shot that Michael Jordan is famous for. The Lakers were up four points with five minutes remaining in the game when James requested to be moved onto Murray, who had scored twenty-eight points on twelve-for-seventeen shooting up to that point. The Lakers took a commanding 3-1 series lead as James blanked Murray on field goals for the remainder of the game en route to a 114-108 victory. This is a really intimidating benefit. No one will be astonished this time if the Nuggets do return.

Jokić, who dances with Murray, is unlike anyone else in the NBA in terms of appearance, performance, and personality. As a seven-footer, he has equal chances of getting a triple-double and slam the ball. He is also a sniper with a jump shot that requires very little jumping. He is an elite point guard and centre. The place where Jokić still maintains his horses is Sombor, Serbia. (He has a passion for harness racing.) He smiles elastically and has a henchman’s face, and his arms are longer than his body. He’s a big man in the NBA, but he isn’t as bulletproof as LeBron James or Dwight Howard when it comes to the weight room. Sometimes he even looked a bit gelatinous, more like a gigantic squid than a great white shark.