Keeler: Jamal Murray is Nuggets’ postseason MVP. But Michael Porter Jr. and Gary Harris deserve game balls, too.

Dono­van Mitchell can’t beat you alone.

Oh, he’ll try. Mer­ri­ly. Yes, every ball that leaves Mitchell’s mitts right now has a flam­ing comet trail behind it, like in the old “NBA Jam” arcade game. Yes, Mitchell and Jamal Mur­ray are putting on a two-man show for the ages. Yes, the Spi­da and the Blue Arrow, two nick­names plucked straight from The Gold­en Age of Com­ic Books, have ele­vat­ed Nuggets-Jazz — ordi­nar­i­ly the West­ern Conference’s fly­over series — into appoint­ment view­ing, prime-time stuff.

But even if he can’t miss, No. 45 also can’t beat you all by himself.

“I know everyone’s been talk­ing about Jamal Mur­ray, his games,” Nuggets coach Michael Mal­one stressed on the eve of Tuesday’s deci­sive Game 7 between Den­ver and Utah.

“(But) we won Game 5 because of our sec­ond-half defense. We won Game 6 because of our defense after the first quar­ter. The first quar­ter, they scored 36 points, they were shoot­ing lights out, didn’t feel us. I think in quar­ters 2, 3, 4, they shot 37% from the field.”

Amen. Amen, amen, amen. Murray’s aver­aged 34.0 points and 5.2 treys per tilt in this series. The kid’s light­ing it up like the Christ­mas tree at Rock­e­feller Cen­ter, match­ing Mitchell twine for twine and mak­ing a case for NBA immor­tal­i­ty at the ten­der age of 23.

But you don’t win two straight, down 3–1, with­out seri­ous stones. You don’t win Game 6 with­out Gary Har­ris, a guy who’s only played 20 min­utes over the last five months. Or with­out Michael Porter Jr., a rook­ie who post­ed a plus/minus of +21 and grabbed 12 boards on Sun­day despite whiff­ing on six of sev­en field-goal attempts.

It was the kind of game that can sow seeds of doubt in a young play­er — MPJ went 0‑for‑5 from beyond the arc — until a coach comes over, puts his arm around the shoul­der, and empha­sizes the 15 oth­er things they did right.

“I told (Porter Jr.) after the game that I was proud of him, because he didn’t allow him­self to be a spe­cial­ist,” Mal­one said. “A spe­cial­ist is a guy that can only impact the game in one way.”

(A spe­cial­ist would also include, by def­i­n­i­tion, some­one such as Kyle Korv­er, the sort of long, instant-offense gun­ner off the bench that the Nuggets have been lack­ing for a few sea­sons. But that’s anoth­er rab­bit hole for anoth­er day.)

Quin Snyder’s Jazz are a hydra of many heads in the back­court, almost all of whom pre­fer to shoot first and ask ques­tions lat­er. Suf­fo­cate two of them and you dance on to the Clip­pers. Even if Mitchell some­how goes for 57 again.

• Exhib­it A: Jor­dan Clarkson

Games 2–4: 22-for-43 from the floor (51.2%), 20.3 points per game. Utah, 3–0.

Games 5–6: 11-for-28 from the floor (39.3%), 14.0 points per con­test. Den­ver, 2–0.

• Exhib­it B: Mike Conley

Games 3–4: 11-for-16 from beyond the arc (68.9%), 26.5 points per game. Utah, 2–0.

Games 5–6: 12-for-25 on treys (48.0%), 19.0 points per con­test. Den­ver, 2–0.

“We knew what Dono­van Mitchell, Mike Con­ley and Jor­dan Clark­son present in a pick-and-roll and 1‑on‑1,” Mal­one con­tin­ued, “and I thought Tor­rey Craig’s defense on Mike Con­ley and I thought Gary Har­ris’ defense on Jor­dan Clark­son were terrific.”

Espe­cial­ly, in the case of Har­ris, for a guy who had yet to play in the bub­ble because of hip issues.

“I wasn’t expect­ing any­thing crazy on the offen­sive end,” Mal­one not­ed. “He hadn’t played a game since March 11.”

The for­mer Michi­gan State star, like grey­beards Will Bar­ton and Paul Mill­sap, has become a divi­sive fig­ure to Nuggets fans, an offen­sive­ly flawed vet­er­an whose ceil­ing is nowhere near Murray’s or Porter’s.

But that’s also not to say he still doesn’t have a role, even when he’s hob­bled, even as a defen­sive “spe­cial­ist” — there’s that word again — rolling off the pine. With Har­ris, you don’t know what you’ve missed until you spend a few weeks ing the Jazz blud­geon Den­ver with the pick-and-roll the way Moe used to whack Curly.

“Gary, his abil­i­ty to defend … he takes pride in it,” Mal­one said. “He’s able to sit down and guard, move his feet. He’s strong. He’s phys­i­cal. I think the most impor­tant part of it is that Gary wants to be a real­ly good defen­sive play­er. You have to have that, and to take pride in it. And that’s what Gary does.”

In the 28 min­utes of Game 6 in which Har­ris wasn’t on the floor, accord­ing to Matt Moore of The Action Net­work, the Jazz post­ed an offen­sive rat­ing — as in, points per 100 pos­ses­sions — of 115.1.

An aver­age offense is usu­al­ly in the 100 range. Dur­ing the 20 min­utes in which Har­ris played, Utah’s rat­ing dropped to a mea­ger 88.

“We’ll need a 48-minute effort on defense in order to have a chance,” Mal­one said. “We know Dono­van Mitchell will leave it all out there.”

When it’s win-or-go-home, you need dag­gers, stars with ice in their veins, the Mur­rays, the Iver­sons, the Jor­dans. You need the Rod­mans, too.

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