Jokić and Murray answered Oklahoma City with a triple-double and 42 points
Two nights after a 5-for-19 opener, Jokić had 35, 15 and 10 and Murray scored 42 in an overtime win over New Orleans, which put both back almost exactly where our projections had them.
By James · 2 min read
Nikola JokićJamal MurrayTrevon BrazilePhotos: NBA, ESPNFreeDenver came back from 23 points down to beat New Orleans 141-135 in overtime on Saturday, and its two stars did the work. Nikola Jokić had 35 points, 15 rebounds and 10 assists, his 199th regular-season triple-double, with eight of his points in overtime, and Jamal Murray scored 42 on 8-for-16 from three, according to ABC News' Associated Press report and the box score our projections read from ESPN. Rookie Trevon Brazile added 17, seven of them in overtime.
- Nikola Jokić DEN1stvs 1st
- Jamal Murray DEN9thvs 16th
- Trevon Brazile DEN250+vs 200+
Two nights earlier, after Jokić shot 5-for-19 and Murray 2-for-11 in Oklahoma City, we wrote that one bad night moves our projections very little and that we would not sell either player. Saturday is the other half of that argument, and the numbers show how the projections behave when a bad game is followed by a very good one.
| Thursday at OKC | Saturday vs NOP | Projected points a game, preseason | After Thursday | After Saturday | Our points rank now | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nikola Jokić | 13 pts, 5-19 FG | 35 pts, 15 reb, 10 ast | 66.2 | 63.5 | 65.9 | 1st |
| Jamal Murray | 6 pts, 2-11 FG | 42 pts, 8-16 3PT | 43.9 | 41.7 | 44.6 | 14th |
The arithmetic did what it is built to do
Our projections weigh each game against the preseason line on a fixed number of pseudo-games, so a bad night pulls a line down a short way and a good one pulls it back up. After two games Jokić's projection is 65.9 fantasy points a game under ESPN's standard points scoring, a third of a point under where it started, and he never left first on either board. Murray went from 43.9 to 41.7 and then to 44.6, slightly above where he began, and back from 21st to 14th on our points board and to 9th in 9-cat, where his threes and his free-throw shooting carry him. A manager who sold either of them on Friday sold at the bottom of a two-game swing that has already closed.
The 44 minutes
Both played 43 or 44 minutes in a game that went to overtime, and Denver was without Cam Johnson and Alpha Diallo, according to the same report, so this is not a workload to expect every night. The minutes our projections carry for both are still around 35 a night, and that is the number to plan on.
Brazile
Trevon Brazile's 17 points, including a corner three that put Denver ahead in overtime, came in a game where Denver was short on forwards. He had 12 rebounds in 18 minutes in Oklahoma City too, and he is worth watching in deep leagues while Johnson is out, but nothing in two games yet makes him a hold in a twelve-team league.
What to do
Nothing with either star, which was the advice on Friday as well. If a league-mate tried to buy Murray cheaply after the opener and you held, this is why.
Every player in this story is on the fantasy basketball rankings and the 2026-27 projections, and the NBA depth charts show where each one stands in his team’s rotation tonight.
