In case there was any ques­tion whether NBA play­off ten­sion would trans­late to the bub­ble, Monday’s Game 1 between the Nuggets and the Jazz deliv­ered with a resound­ing yes.

A grip­ping, dra­mat­ic open­er turned into a riv­et­ing over­time affair that the Nuggets’ young stars weren’t going to lose. Jamal Mur­ray ripped the game from Utah star Dono­van Mitchell’s clutch­es, and poured in 10 points in the extra ses­sion to car­ry the Nuggets to a 135–125 victory.

“We’re grow­ing accus­tomed to see­ing that, from him and Niko­la,” said Nuggets coach Michael Mal­one. “Just a hell of a game.”

Game 2, if either team has any­thing left, is Wednesday.

Mur­ray fin­ished with 36 points, includ­ing six 3‑pointers, out­last­ing Mitchell’s career-high 57 points. No defen­sive scheme or play­er came close to imped­ing the Jazz’s sen­sa­tion­al star. The 57 points was the third high­est scor­ing total in NBA post­sea­son history.

Nuggets fran­chise cen­ter Niko­la Jokic fin­ished with 29 points and four 3‑pointers, but missed what would’ve been the game-win­ning look in reg­u­la­tion over Utah’s Rudy Gob­ert. Jokic aid­ed Murray’s over­time attack with a clutch 3‑pointer of his own.

The shot-mak­ing from both teams, in their cre­ativ­i­ty and lev­el of dif­fi­cul­ty, was stun­ning, espe­cial­ly for a Game 1. Though Mur­ray seized the over­time ses­sion, it was Denver’s defense that halt­ed any Utah momen­tum. The Nuggets forced three con­sec­u­tive turnovers in over­time as Mur­ray con­tin­ued his assault on the oth­er end.

“Hon­est­ly, you could have 75 or 80 (points),” Mur­ray said. “Win­ning is the most impor­tant. You are scor­ing to win. You are get­ting stops to win. Win­ning is pri­or­i­ty. Stats is nev­er on my mind.”

That the Jazz made it close, with­out start­ing point guard Mike Con­ley, who left the bub­ble for the birth of his son Sun­day, sug­gests a dra­mat­ic series mov­ing forward.

“We’re going to film tomor­row,” Mal­one said. “We’re not sat­is­fied. …This is just one step in a very long series.”

The Nuggets came out flat in the third quar­ter after sink­ing a fran­chise-record 11 3‑pointers in the first half. Mitchell swiveled in and out of Denver’s defense, which was already com­pro­mised from injuries. Foul trou­ble to Tor­rey Craig didn’t help, and nei­ther did the injury absences of Gary Har­ris (hip) and Will Bar­ton (knee). Wily vet­er­an Joe Ingles exposed Michael Porter Jr.’s defense and burned the Nuggets for 19 points.

Mitchell spear­head­ed Utah’s 31-point third quar­ter, which fea­tured dev­il­ish fin­ish­es, while Rudy Gobert’s patent­ed screen assists set the foun­da­tion for so many of Utah’s actions. With Denver’s offense momen­tar­i­ly out of sync, Monte Mor­ris’ steady play kept it close. He had sev­er­al phys­i­cal fin­ish­es inside to trim the deficit to 83–78 head­ing into the fourth.

Murray’s series seemed to start late in the sec­ond quar­ter when Denver’s emo­tion­al point guard could be heard audi­bly yelling on the broad­cast. First Utah reserve Jor­dan Clark­son picked up a tech­ni­cal foul, seem­ing­ly dis­pleased with an official’s call, and that was fol­lowed short­ly there­after by anoth­er from Jazz coach Quin Sny­der. The tech­ni­cals were sand­wiched in between Murray’s per­son­al 12-point run that spanned just 1:25. After a 3‑pointer capped his spurt and prompt­ed a Jazz time­out, Mur­ray tossed a fiery glance toward Utah’s bench.

If Jokic is Denver’s floor leader, Mur­ray is their emo­tion­al touchstone.

On Mon­day, they were not going to be denied.