Jamal Murray Blames Bad Elbow, Not Anthony Edwards’ Defense, for His Bust Game 6 Performance

Reporter: “How difficult did Anthony Edwards make it for you tonight?”

Murray: “For who? For me?”

Reporter: “Yeah, for you.”

Murray : “It was less about [Anthony Edwards], it was more about my elbow, at that point. Even some of my passes. It was more offensively for him, it wasn’t guarding me, he was scoring on the other end. He was scoring at a great rate. And then on top of that, Mike Conley, Jaden McDaniels had a great game. Everybody on their team brought their game today. We weren’t able to defend them, keep them out of the paint of off the line. So yeah, we just gotta be better.”

Minnesota’s defense isn’t based on the performance of a single player. Despite not having Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert in Game 2, Chris Finch’s squad one. They were then dominated in games three and four as he returned. On Thursday night it was all about the guards staying on top of Murray, but he had no desire to acknowledge that.

Minnesota Timberwolves vs Denver Nuggets goes to game 7

Despite the question being about whether Anthony Edwards was worth crediting for the defensive performance that the Minnesota Timberwolves put on Jamal Murray Thursday, the Denver Nuggets guard suggested he was dealing with an elbow injury. That hasn’t been a prominent talking point during any part of the series, and it certainly wasn’t an issue while he was going off either of the past two games.

With a couple of days in between Game 6 and Game 7, Murray will have time to heal. Anthony Edwards will need to heal his lower back and hip after a nasty fall as well, but only one of them made any mention of an injury slowing them down. Murray has made sure to talk plenty this series, and Anthony Edwards has welcomed all of it.

Having everything on the line for Game 7, it might be nice of Anthony Edwards to remind Jamal Murray just who he is.