ORLANDO — After fight­ing back, scor­ing 36 points to lift the dazed Nuggets off the mat to vic­to­ry in their NBA play­off open­er, Jamal Mur­ray peeled off his bas­ket­ball uni­form and pulled on a T‑shirt that paid trib­ute to Muham­mad Ali, with a silk-screened pho­to of the leg­endary box­er rais­ing his gloves tri­umphant­ly toward heaven

On a mug­gy Flori­da after­noon, Mur­ray rained down shots on Utah like hay­mak­ers and talked trash like a champ at Jazz guard Dono­van Mitchell, as Den­ver won 135–125 in over­time in a rugged Game 1 that was not for the faint of heart.

“Guys get under each other’s skin. It brings you out more … and some peo­ple fold,” said Mur­ray, proud­ly tug­ging at the Ali T‑shirt with his thumbs and index fin­gers, in praise of The Greatest.

“We were able to fight back and hold them off. It was: ‘Lights, cam­era, action. Come on! We are try­ing to get this win!’”

Mitchell scored a very Jor­danesque 57 points, dar­ing Den­ver to fold. Mur­ray took it as a chal­lenge. And won. It was the stuff of leg­end both play­ers’ grand­kids will talk about decades from now.

Know the sweet­est part? Mur­ray wait­ed 463 long days to deliv­er this big, knock­out blow in a big fight that real­ly mat­tered. After get­ting bounced from the play­offs on their home floor in 2019, the Nuggets were forced to wait more than a year to win back a mea­sure of respect.

Although Mitchell tried to beat the Nuggets sin­gle-hand­ed­ly, do you think Den­ver was going down in the Dis­ney bub­ble with­out a fight? What are you, freakin’ Goofy?

“We lost to Port­land in Game 7,” Nuggets coach Michael Mal­one duly not­ed,  “463 days ago.”

Think he kept count? Or maybe men­tioned it to his team? Mal­one spoke about this bas­ket­ball penance with the pas­sion of a man that has put a big, black cross on the cal­en­dar every sin­gle day since the Nuggets end­ed their last play­off appear­ance with a gnaw­ing sense of lost oppor­tu­ni­ty, not to men­tion unfin­ished business.

“We’re here for bas­ket­ball,” Mur­ray said. “So why not get the job done?”

A short-hand­ed Den­ver team, play­ing with­out injured starters Will Bar­ton (knee) and Gary Har­ris (hip) since return­ing from the four-month, coro­n­avirus-imposed break, has a chip the size of Space Moun­tain on its col­lec­tive shoulders.

With all the focus on LeBron and Kawhi, the Greek Freak and the Beard as these NBA play­offs belat­ed­ly began, the Nuggets are irked about being dis­missed as a legit­i­mate con­tender. What’s more, Mal­one seemed offend­ed his team was giv­en a half-priced pop­corn, after­noon-mati­nee time slot by ESPN in the tele­vi­sion lineup.

“I guess the Utah-Den­ver matchup didn’t excite a lot of peo­ple around the league,” Mal­one quipped. “They put us as the 1:30 (p.m. East­ern time) game on the Oxy­gen Network.”

Well, I swear on the good name of the great Doris Burke that these Nuggets didn’t exact­ly look ready for prime time, espe­cial­ly when they fell behind 90–86 after Mitchell hit a mid-range floater with eight min­utes, 24 sec­onds remain­ing in the fourth quarter.

Would this be a poor time to men­tion Mitchell is only a mem­ber of the Jazz because Den­ver trad­ed the 13th pick in the 2017 NBA draft to Utah in exchange for that dynam­ic duo of Tyler Lydon and Trey Lyles? (Who? Exactly.)

“If Dono­van Mitchell aver­ages 57 and we win, I’ll stay away from the draw­ing board,” Mal­one quipped.

The coach could crack wise because Mur­ray refused to be shown up by Mitchell.

For­get his lucky stars. Mal­one should thank Mur­ray for com­ing up big in the clutch, scor­ing 20 of his 36 points dur­ing the tight­est moments of the fourth quar­ter and as Mitchell tired in overtime.

“He matched fire with fire,” Mal­one said.

In a quirk of bas­ket­ball in a bub­ble, the Nuggets and Jazz have been holed up in the same Orlan­do-area hotel since ear­ly July. Of course they bump into each oth­er. The rooms where the two teams eat meals are locat­ed in the same hallway.

Now that the play­offs have begun, this has the poten­tial to be as awk­ward as the Gryffind­ors and Slytherins min­gling at Hogwarts.

“We are going to see each oth­er in the cold-tub area,” Jokic said after a gru­el­ing Game 1.

He seemed dis­in­clined to rub the vic­to­ry in the face of Utah cen­ter Rudy Gob­ert, per­haps because it’s prob­a­bly unwise to talk smack with a man who stands 7‑foot‑1 and weighs 258 pounds.

“It’s not like we are in a war,” Jokic said. “It’s a war on the floor, but it’s not, you know. It’s still a game of bas­ket­ball that we enjoy to play. It’s not some­thing we are going to kill each oth­er for. Maybe on the floor. But out­side the floor, why? We are all eat­ing the same bread.”

Win­ning makes the sand­wich­es tasti­er and the beer cold­er, though. You know the deal. Vic­tors, spoils and all that Jazz.

Sor­ry, Utah. You tried.

The Nuggets will see you ’round cam­pus. Maybe even buy your din­ner. Fair warn­ing: Hum­ble pie is served cold.