Jamal Murray’s hamstring tightness is kind of injury that “can stick around for a while,” Michael Malone says. – The Denver Post

Collin Gillespie didn’t have any texts from family waiting for him after he scored his first career NBA points.

“Honestly, my parents are probably asleep,” Gillespie said after playing almost 12 minutes in Denver’s 123-101 win over the Bulls on Saturday night. “They probably have no idea this happened. They’re back on the east coast. It’s midnight there.”

Instead of sending his parents something about the occasion, Gillespie said he was expecting to wake up to a text  Sunday morning.

“I’m just gonna let them figure it out,” he said. “They were probably like, ‘Oh, he’s not gonna play.’ Hey, they learned their lesson.”

Gillespie’s five points and two assists were a heart-warming culmination for his teammates and Nuggets coach Michael Malone, who watched Gillespie rehab from a fractured leg that prevented him from getting a chance like this as a rookie last season. The two-way player out of Villanova is the third-string point guard on Denver’s depth chart, although the Nuggets also use Nikola Jokic as a point center, Aaron Gordon as a point forward and any other number of positional permutations to initiate their offense.

So the only cloud looming over Gillespie’s exciting moment was what necessitated it. Starting point guard Jamal Murray, spearheading the bench unit, asked to sub out of the game one minute into the second quarter and proceeded directly down the tunnel to the locker room. Initially listed as questionable to return with right hamstring tightness, he remained out the rest of the night.

Malone had no specific update after the game. “Haven’t spoken to our training staff yet,” the coach told reporters.

On one hand, hamstring tightness was something Murray had been dealing with as far back as Nuggets training camp one month ago. It was never enough of an issue to prevent him from competing until now, and Malone felt comfortable playing him Saturday in the second half of a back-to-back even after Murray logged 39 minutes Friday.

On the other hand, as Malone put it, “you always worry about those types of injuries, because they can stick around for a while. So we have to be smart about it.”

The timing of the injury, especially in a game against a weaker opponent, is less than ideal if it actually sidelines Murray this week. The Nuggets host the Pelicans and Warriors, two Western Conference teams that are off to impressive starts. Reggie Jackson, the point guard between Murray and Gillespie on the depth chart, described Murray as a top-five point guard in the NBA after Denver’s win Saturday.

Gillespie wasn’t told definitively at halftime that he would enter the game. He had to put two and two together after there was still at least marginal uncertainty about Murray’s status going into the break.

“A couple of the coaches told me, ‘Listen just be ready. We don’t know what’s gonna happen with Jamal,’” Gillespie said. “And then I came back in (the locker room) and he was already showered up.”

So Jackson took Murray’s place with the starting unit, and Gillespie came off the bench. He scored his first career bucket by cutting, receiving a dime from Michael Porter Jr. and finishing a reverse layup. In the fourth quarter, Gillespie knocked down his first NBA 3-pointer. Teammates gave him loud cheers and warm welcomes when he returned to the bench. DeAndre Jordan shouted in the locker room, “2024 All-Star” after the game.

“He looked really good out there,” said Christian Braun, Gillespie’s friend and the recipient of one of his assists.

“We’re not cutthroat,” Malone said. “Collin suffers a horrific injury after a very impressive (2022) Summer League, and the easy thing to do is, ‘Well, hey, let’s cut him and find somebody that can help us.’ But I give Calvin (Booth), I give Josh (Kroenke), I give our entire organization credit because we believed in Collin. That night of the draft, I was hoping he didn’t get drafted because we wanted him.