Jamal Murray, the Denver Nuggets guard, has long said that he was meant to shoot huge shots. Murray trained for his big break as a kid in Kitchener, Ontario, by performing pushups in the snow and basketball drills on ice. 

Murray landed in Denver as the seventh pick in the 2016 draft and was given the go-ahead to shoot by Nuggets coach Mike Malone.

Perhaps it was gratuitous permission. Murray rewarded his team’s faith with evenings of tremendous scoring—as well as nights in which he missed a lot. He was terrible from three-point range at beginning, and he frequently passed up three-point opportunities to take tough two-point shots, which is the most wasteful way to score. But he was also persistent and inventive, breaking screens, sharpening his ball-handling skills, and perfecting smooth little passes. He obviously kept shooting.

Murray was fortunate in that he did not have to carry the team. He didn’t even need to carry the ball up the court, despite being a point guard. The Nuggets already had a young ball-handling sensation in Nikola Joki, the team’s center who could distribute the ball better than any big man in history. The Nuggets had flaws, some of which were obvious; they, like Murray, could be frustratingly inconsistent. However, Joki and Murray developed a friendship. They were a rare duo of rising stars capable of running the pick-and-roll in both directions. According to PBPstats.com, Joki fed Murray 129 assists during the regular season, the third-most of any duo in the NBA. Murray fed Joki a total of 116, good for eighth place. No other couple combined for as many; no one came close. They formed a rhythm, a sense of where the other was at any given time.

Only Murray and Joki could have envisaged the scene that happened on Thursday night after the team was defeated 3-1 by the Utah Jazz in the first round of the playoffs: In Game Four of the Western Conference Finals, Murray was low to the ground, driving with a push-ahead dribble, the ball barely but brilliantly handled, going directly at LeBron James. James leapt, right arm extended, a rising wall, as Murray approached the rim. Murray then switched the ball to his left in midair and swung it under and behind James, completed the layup with his right hand as he fell. It was a carbon duplicate of one of Michael Jordan’s most legendary shots, and it piqued James’ interest. With five minutes remaining in the game and the Lakers leading by four, James requested that the ball be passed to Murray, who had scored twenty-eight points on twelve-for-seventeen shooting up to that moment. Murray was kept without a field goal for the rest of the game, and the Lakers won 114-108 to take a 3-1 series lead. It’s a frightening advantage. Even still, if the Nuggets do return, no one will be astonished.

Murray’s dance partner, Joki, plays, looks, and acts like no one else in the NBA. He’s an elite center and point guard, a seven-footer who can earn a triple-double as easily as he can slam the ball, and a sniper whose jump shot requires very little jumping. Joki is from Sombor, Serbia, and still keeps his horses there. (He’s a big fan of harness racing.) He has the face of a henchman and an elastic smile, and his arms are far too long for his physique. He’s one of the NBA’s biggest big men, but he doesn’t have the weight-room toughness of Dwight Howard or LeBron James. He has even appeared gelatinous at times, more like a huge squid than a great white shark.

Joki’s impulse is to pass, but Murray’s is to shoot. He frequently appears to be playing a game inside a game, flipping assists that curve around defenders: behind-the-head blind chucks, long looping back-spinning bounce passes, water-polo-style outlet passes, casual court-long alley-oops, delicate little give-and-goes. His flowing footwork has a surprising grace to it. Then he shoots, and nothing floats about him. The Sombor Shuffle is not so much a jump shot as it is a left-legged kick move that forces his upper body backward. The ball appears to travel straight up before taking a tight parabola toward the hoop as soon as it leaves his hands. The hitch back generates just enough space from his defender, and the high, quick release, without a clunky hop, makes it harder for defenses to react.

On the surface, Joki and Murray appear to be polar opposites. Whereas Murray has spent his entire life hammering his body into shape, there are legends about Joki being unable to do a single pushup as a kid and being unable to hold a plank for more than twenty seconds when he first came in the N.B.A. Murray is frantic, but Joki is almost drowsy. On any given night, you know what to expect from Joki. Murray, perhaps? Not at all.

However, something peculiar has been happening during these playoffs. As supportive couples frequently do, the odd couple has grown in similarity. Murray, who was once streaky, has risen to the occasion time and again—he’s scoring 27 points per game and hitting over half of his threes. His usage is increasing, as are his assists. Murray has the most assists for Joki in the playoffs, with 51. Next up is James-to-Anthony Davis, followed by Joki-to-Murray. Joki drew attention when he arrived on the bubble looking fit, even slim; he’s been looking to score more frequently himself, including eleven straight points down the stretch in Game Two against the Lakers, a game in which the Lakers needed a buzzer-beater from Davis to win. As I was watching them on Thursday night, it came to me that they’ve probably always had more in common than I’d realized, most notably a shared energy and a love of innovation. Sometimes they cause the very problems they have to fix. But there is also amusement there.