For a split-sec­ond in Saturday’s fourth quar­ter, Nuggets vet­er­an Gary Har­ris paused to admire his work.

He should have. It was a long time coming.

After miss­ing near­ly six months of bas­ket­ball from March 11th to August 30th, Har­ris had his break­out game Sat­ur­day night against the Clip­pers in Game 2 of the West­ern Con­fer­ence semi­fi­nals. If his Game 7 deflec­tion on Utah’s Dono­van Mitchell was a reminder of his impen­e­tra­ble defense, then his four 3‑pointers Sat­ur­day showed why the Nuggets have so much trust in him despite a tur­bu­lent season.

Den­ver led, 93–86, with 8:12 remain­ing, but its offense was scuf­fling. Every pos­ses­sion was a slog, and Los Ange­les was threat­en­ing to over­come what was once a 23-point deficit.

Soon after, Har­ris dropped back-to-back 3‑pointers. It was the sec­ond one that gave the Nuggets an insur­mount­able 11-point lead with 1:38 remain­ing when Har­ris milked the moment.

“They saved us,” Nuggets coach Michael Mal­one said of Har­ris’ clutch shoot­ing. “They got real­ly, real­ly aggres­sive (on defense) in that fourth quarter.”

Guard Jamal Mur­ray and cen­ter Niko­la Jokic had car­ried the Nuggets ear­ly in the game but found the going tough in the fourth quarter.

“They were blitz­ing Jamal’s pick-and-rolls, they were dou­ble-team­ing all of Nikola’s post-ups, and the ball found Gary, and with­out any hes­i­ta­tion, he stepped up,” Mal­one said.

Harris’s  13 points were in addi­tion to his tremen­dous one-on-one defense against Paul George. The Clip­pers’ “sec­ond “star reg­is­tered 22 points but missed 12 of 19 shots.

Har­ris’ “bub­ble” debut was stunt­ed after arriv­ing in Orlan­do about two weeks after the rest of the team and then suf­fer­ing a hip strain dur­ing one of his first prac­tices. It wasn’t until Game 6 against Utah in the first-round series that he felt com­fort­able enough to play. That, of course, came after a rocky sea­son where his shoot­ing per­cent­ages (42%) and his scor­ing aver­ages (10.4 points) both dropped from a year ago.

Yet Malone’s faith nev­er wavered in his longest-tenured player.

“I know there’s a lot of peo­ple out there that ques­tion Gary and have been hat­ing on Gary about his offense,” Mal­one said Sun­day. “Well, hope­ful­ly after last night’s per­for­mance, which allowed us to tie this series up, peo­ple will give Gary a lit­tle bit of a break. I trust him, and he came through for us last night.”

If Har­ris can find a con­sis­tent 3‑point stroke head­ing into Monday’s Game 3, it not only offers anoth­er scor­ing spoke, but it simul­ta­ne­ous­ly alle­vi­ates pres­sure on the Nuggets’ two fran­chise play­ers. While some have pegged Michael Porter Jr. as the third wheel, the real­i­ty is that the rook­ie isn’t con­sis­tent­ly there yet. (And, on Sun­day, the Nuggets list­ed Jokic as ques­tion­able for Monday’s game with a right wrist sprain.)

In the Nuggets’ Game 2 win, it was a com­bi­na­tion of Har­ris, Porter (11 points), Paul Mill­sap (13) and Monte Mor­ris (10) that sup­ple­ment­ed Jokic and Murray’s scor­ing binge. The sup­port­ing cast, cou­pled with unyield­ing mul­ti­ple-effort defense, was respon­si­ble for tying the series at 1–1.

San­i­ty bike rides: Mal­one said that one of the unique quirks of the bub­ble has been run­ning into oppo­nents in restau­rants, bar­ber­shops, ele­va­tors and meal rooms. Before the Nuggets’ Game 5 win over Utah, Mal­one said he hap­pened to be get­ting a hair­cut at the exact same time as Clip­pers’ coach Doc Rivers. Mal­one said that Rivers had guar­an­teed the Nuggets would win.

In addi­tion to that wrin­kle, Mal­one said the bub­ble has giv­en him a chance to get to know oth­er coach­es on a more per­son­al lev­el, includ­ing Celtics coach Brad Stevens. The two have had mul­ti­ple con­ver­sa­tions after more than 60 days inside the NBA’s complex.

Stevens recent­ly told Boston media that he goes on dai­ly “san­i­ty” walks to clear his mind. When asked if he’d ever joined Stevens on one of those excur­sions, Mal­one said no.

“I’ve seen him on his san­i­ty walks because I’m on my san­i­ty bike rides,” Mal­one said. “You can keep san­i­ty in a lot of dif­fer­ent ways. It’s what your favorite activ­i­ty is. I’m not much of a walk­er. Walk­ing is okay, but I like the bik­ing. So I do my san­i­ty laps around the bubble.”

Hey, what­ev­er works.