LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – When Michael Mal­one shared with reporters a small slice of his rela­tion­ship with Jamal Mur­ray late Tues­day night after the Nuggets’ Game 3 win over the Lak­ers, he was actu­al­ly tying a thread to his decades around the NBA.

After last year’s heart­break­ing play­off loss in Game 7 against Port­land, the Nuggets’ coach told Mur­ray he need­ed him to be more con­sis­tent. Every rela­tion­ship a coach has is dif­fer­ent, and not all play­ers want to hear the negative.

What makes Mur­ray dif­fer­ent, Mal­one said, is that he does.

“It’s fun­ny, when I go back to my five years as an assis­tant coach in Cleve­land, that was part of my rela­tion­ship with LeBron (James),” Mal­one recalled. “I was unafraid to coach him, to hold him account­able if he wasn’t doing his job. (That’s) the rea­son, I think, Chris Paul and I hit it off (in New Orleans). Then as a head coach, I think of DeMar­cus Cousins. ‘How did Coach Mal­one get through to DeMar­cus?’ Now Jamal Mur­ray. I think great play­ers inher­ent­ly want to be coached, held account­able. They want some­body to help them become the best play­ers they can be, max­i­mize all their tal­ents and potential.”

Every­one from Nuggets pres­i­dent of bas­ket­ball oper­a­tions Tim Con­nel­ly to Mal­one has rid­den Mur­ray hard. It’s because of the rare tal­ent and men­tal make­up they see in him. It was only last sum­mer that some ques­tioned the Nuggets giv­ing Mur­ray a five-year, $170 mil­lion max con­tract. At that point, Mur­ray had been incon­sis­tent, at best, in his 14-game play­off debut. But he was still only 22 at the time.

“When you look at it, Jamal Mur­ray, how he’s played in these 17 Play­off games, for a guy that has nev­er been an All-Star, under­stand­ably so, is real­ly remark­able,” Mal­one said. “For him to take advan­tage of this stage, kind of what Niko­la (Jokic) did last year in his first expe­ri­ence in the post­sea­son. I don’t think (find­ing a play­er who wants to be coached hard) is too rare, but I think it speaks to Jamal’s desire to be not a good play­er, not an All-Star, but a superstar.”

Murray’s two clutch 3‑pointers late in Game 3 helped the Nuggets avoid what would’ve like­ly been an insur­mount­able 3–0 deficit in the West­ern Con­fer­ence Finals. His 28-point, 12-assist, eight-rebound line shows how much more of a com­plete bas­ket­ball play­er he has become.

As the high­est draft pick (No. 7) on a team stacked with sec­ond-rounders, Nuggets play­ers take pride in their cir­cuitous paths to the Con­fer­ence Finals. Mal­one knows that the team’s sto­ry, com­ing back from two 3–1 play­off deficits, is inspi­ra­tional for any­one who wants to listen.

“Every NBA ros­ter has tal­ent,” Mal­one said. “What sep­a­rates the teams that are still here from maybe some of the oth­ers is not tal­ent, it’s the intan­gi­bles. I think we’ve proven time and time again that we are a spe­cial group.”

Mal­one relayed that his moth­er has been going to a doc­tor for an undis­closed reason.

“It gives her a kind of new life bat­tling what she’s going through,” Mal­one said. “I think my mother’s sto­ry, there’s prob­a­bly a lot of peo­ple out there who look at us and say, We’re the SAT ques­tion: Which team doesn’t belong? It is the Den­ver Nuggets. The Lak­ers, Boston. That is bas­ket­ball roy­al­ty. It’s the Mia­mi Heat. They have cham­pi­onships. What does Den­ver have? We have a group that fights, rep­re­sents a lot of peo­ple from all across this country.”

Even rook­ie Michael Porter Jr., whose play­off debut has led to a berth in the Con­fer­ence Finals, sens­es some­thing special.

“I’ve got­ten some texts from peo­ple I haven’t got­ten texts from for a long time, just how we are an encour­age­ment to them and we are inspir­ing them to keep fight­ing,” Porter said. “It’s crazy how sports can do that to peo­ple all around the world. It’s def­i­nite­ly some­thing spe­cial that we’re a part of, and we’re going to try to keep it going.”