SARNIA, ON — It had been 725 days since Jamal Murray scored 40 points in an NBA game. But on Saturday, February 4th against the Hawks, the Blue Arrow returned.
Murray scored 41 points in Denver's win against Atlanta.
"That’s the stuff that I thought about during my rehab," Murray smiled in his postgame interview with Nuggets sideline reporter Katy Winge. "Coming back and putting on a show and having fun and being in that zone that I was just in. It’s nice to see it through."
After the game, everyone on Twitter was talking about Nuggets superfan Scott Vanos.
"One night, I had the idea: I was missing Jamal play and I just put out a tweet that when he comes back, I’m gonna wear his jersey every day until he drops 40 in a game," Vanos explained.
Every single game day, the 22-year old wore a No. 27 jersey.
"I never wanted to miss a game that it happened," Vanos said.
That could have been any night. He says he wore the jersey in four different countries.
"Like right when he hit it, I was getting all sorts of mentions like, they were adding me in their tweets saying he did it, getting replies, likes, and yeah they didn’t stop coming. It was honestly overwhelming but pure elation."
Imagine the elation he felt when he saw that Murray liked his original tweet!
"It will be something I remember. I don’t know if that’s sad or not since it’s just a little Twitter account," Vanos laughed.
The cool thing is, Scott is actually from Sarnia, Canada, just an hour and a half away from where Murray grew up in Kitchener. The Canadian bond is strong.
"Being from another country, a few time zones away, grew up close to Jamal, kind of, it actually does mean a lot that everyone was so proud of me, I guess, for going through this and keeping it up. But yeah no it actually made me very happy to see all the support," he said.
Vanos says he has never been to an NBA game or to the Mile High City. He had plans to travel to see a Nuggets-Raptors game in Toronto but the game was canceled during the pandemic.
He hopes this year he will get to see Denver play in Toronto, and maybe one day he’ll travel to Colorado.
"Honestly, it’s probably one of the best sporting decisions I’ve made in my life to cheer for Jamal and the Nuggets.”
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