LOS ANGELES (AFP) – Jamal Murray scored 37 points as the Denver Nuggets routed the Los Angeles Lakers, 119-108, on Saturday to move within one win of reaching the NBA finals for the first time in the team’s history.
A dazzling first-half shooting performance from Denver point guard Murray laid the foundation for a deserved road win that leaves the Nuggets with a commanding 3-0 lead in the best-of-seven Western Conference finals series.
After claiming back-to-back victories at home in Games one and two, Denver delivered a performance of ruthless precision to dispatch LeBron James and the 17-time champion Lakers at the Crypto.com Arena.
Murray finished with 37 points, seven rebounds and six assists while Nikola Jokic added 24 points — including 15 in the fourth quarter — to steer Denver to victory.
Anthony Davis led the Lakers’ scoring with 28 points while James and Austin Reaves added 23 points apiece.
Lakers coach Darvin Ham admitted his team had been unable to handle Murray early on.
“He got off scorching,” Ham said of Murray. “He’s one of those players, man, once he starts to see them go in, it’s just he catches fire, and he rolls them off pretty quickly, which he did in that first half.
“Basically carried them offensively through that half,” the Lakers coach added, paying tribute to top-seeded Denver’s all-round potency.
A typically star-studded crowd with the likes of Hollywood actors Jack Nicholson and Denzel Washington sitting at courtside were unable to inspire the Lakers, who now must win game four on Monday to avoid a clean sweep.
The Nuggets took control with a dominant first quarter performance that saw Murray pick up where he had left off in game two with another devastating shooting clinic.
Murray, who scored 23 points in the fourth quarter of Denver’s game two win on Thursday, rattled in 17 points in the first on Saturday in a dream start for the Nuggets.
While Los Angeles managed to contain Jokic effectively, the Lakers had no answer to Murray, who was eight-of-10 from the field as the Nuggets surged into a double-digit lead.
Murray’s early success rate was more than the entire Lakers line-up combined, with the hosts shooting only 7-of-23 in the first quarter.
