If Nuggets want NBA title, Jamal Murray might have to carry them there

Jamal Murray floated above the cringe. He sailed. He feinted. He faded. He soared.

The Nuggets’ playoff hero opened the second half by crashing the paint and elevating with his back to the rim, then throwing the ball overhead and blind, circus-style, at the hoop.

Naturally, he swished it.

Surely, the Blue Arrow can’t do this alone, can he?

For most of Tuesday’s series-wrapping 112-109 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves, it looked as if Murray might have to.

With 3:34 left in a four-point game, No. 27 had put up five treys and 33 points. The other seven Nuggets had combined for seven and 67, respectively.

Tuesday was a walk through Bizarro World. The T-Pups, down 3-1, managed to split the difference between desperate and loose. The Nuggets, conversely, seemed to alternate between uptight and upstaged. (see Edwards, Anthony.)

Nikola Jokic, Mr. Dependable, played in a funk, missing on 17 of his first 23 shots and eight of his first 10, en route to one of the least sexy triple-doubles of a Hall-of-Fame career. Michael Porter Jr. didn’t score until there was 10:05 left in the tilt.

In the final two minutes, the T-Pups doubled and trapped Murray whenever they could, daring anyone else — literally, anyone — to put this game, and this series, to bed.

It took until there was 28 seconds left, but the Joker finally, mercifully, did. The two-time NBA MVP converted a 3-point play that put the hosts up 109-104 as they hung on for dear life as The Edwards Show — the man scored his 29th point with 3.4 seconds left on the clock — kept swinging to the bitter end.

Bring on the Suns. Or the Clippers. But if Games 4 and 5 were any harbinger of what’s to come, Nuggets faithful had best bring some antacid, too.

A close-‘em-out, send-em-fishing tilt opened with about the worst — and softest — first quarter imaginable for the Ball Arena faithful. Minnesota drained 13 of its first 22 shots while outscoring the Nuggets in the paint, 20-8. The team down 3-1 in the series was on a pace to score 80 in the paint.

The Wolves felt the Nuggets, all right. Only they felt like a gentle summer breeze.

Jeff Green missed two foul shots with 3:12 left in the first quarter, the Nuggets trailed 23-12, and the boos started bubbling to the surface.

The hosts whiffed on 14 of their first 21, seven of 10 from beyond the arc — MPJ and Aaron Gordon were a combined 0 for 4 at the start — and seemed to take turns bobbling the rock.

“Our mindset is, you know, we don’t want to go back to Minnesota,” Denver coach Michael Malone said before the game. “We want to take care of business at home in front of our fans. And it’s going to be a great challenge for us.”

If watching Denver try to defend the pick and roll was hard for you, imagine how much fun it was for Malone.

The urgency the coach had hoped for, especially on the defensive end, as Edwards seemingly drove at will, was nowhere to be found.

“It seems like as the series goes along, we’re just becoming a little less disciplined as we go,” Malone noted earlier. “And that can’t be the case. And when I speak about discipline, that’s personnel. ‘Who am I guarding? Which way does he like to drive?’ We know that Anthony Edwards, I think, is second or third in the playoffs in free-throw attempts per game, almost nine per game.

“So we can’t open up and give him straight-line drives to his left hand. We got to show our hands. We’re putting our hands in there way too much. So we are a little bit better in Game 4. But overall, the fouling has definitely been an issue.”

He’s got a few bigger issues now. And, thanks to Murray, mercifully, a few days to figure them out before a season’s litmus test rolls right to his doorstep.

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