The Gillespie family woke up Sunday morning to quite the surprise.

“Honestly, my parents are probably asleep,” Nuggets guard Collin Gillespie said in the post-game locker room after Denver’s 123-101 win over the Bulls Saturday at Ball Arena. “They probably have no idea this happened.”

Gillespie came to that conclusion because he hadn’t heard from his family after he scored the first five points of his young NBA career. The 24-year-old rookie checked in midway through the third quarter, which was around 10:30 p.m. local time in his hometown of Huntingdon Valley, PA. He finished 2 of 4 from the field with two assists and a rebound in just under 12 minutes of playing time.

“I can’t say enough great things about Collin,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said. “The journey he’s been on, to get through everything he’s gone through and to go out there and play and play the way he did tonight … you root for kids like that. Happy for Collin and the job that he did tonight.”

Malone called Gillespie’s number after Jamal Murray exited the game early in the second quarter and did not return with what the team called right hamstring tightness. Denver’s coach was uncertain of the severity of Murray’s injury immediately after the game, but a cautious approach moving forward looks likely.

“You always worry about those types of injuries, because they can stick around for a while,” Malone said. “So, we have to be smart about it.”

Some of Denver’s assistants told Gillespie, who was yet to play meaningful NBA minutes, to be prepared after Murray left the court and headed down the tunnel. Things got more serious when Gillespie got to the locker room at halftime and realized Murray had already showered. A couple minutes after taking the court for the first meaningful minutes of his career, Gillespie scored his first NBA points on an assist from Michael Porter Jr.

“I wasn’t pressed about it,” Gillespie said of getting on the board. “Obviously, playing with those guys, it was going to come a little bit easier, because I’m the fifth guy out there. The focus is on those guys, so I was just playing, trying to get into the flow of the game and help us do whatever we needed to do to win.”

That’s something he wasn’t physically able to do last season. After going undrafted in 2022, he signed a two-way contract with the Denver Nuggets. He looked comfortable leading a team at Summer League but wouldn’t get the chance to see how that carried over to the regular season. He suffered a serious injury back in Philadelphia in the weeks before he was set to return to Denver. Gillespie told reporters last summer he broke his tibia and fibula and dislocated his ankle. The Nuggets could’ve released him at any time last season given the nature of his contract but stuck with the NCAA champion and 2022 Bob Cousy Award winner.

“That speaks about who we are as an organization. We’re not cutthroat,” Malone said. “Collin suffers a horrific injury after a very impressive Summer League, and the easy thing to do is (say) ‘Oh 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. The night of the draft, I was hoping he didn’t get drafted, because we wanted him. He was a NCAA point guard of the year. The guy’s won a championship. He played for one of the best college coaches in recent history in Jay Wright. He just has a great feel for the game.

“He makes open shots. He’s used to winning. He has all the attributes that you want, all the intangibles that you want. That’s why tonight was special for me, to see him go through that injury, miss all year last season.”

Despite missing all of what was supposed to be his rookie season, Gillespie managed to make an impact. He impressed Reggie Jackson in such short order the 12-year veteran calls Gillespie a “young vet.”

“He gets it,” Jackson said. “He’s locked in. He’s holding — sometimes myself and older guys — accountable for the work that we’re putting in, for being ready, what our game plan is. So, you could tell early he just gets it. He knows. I don’t know if he had a job young or what it is, but he understands what it means to have a role and to be a star in your role and to be able to hold people accountable. His tenacity is fire.”

Gillespie finished his night by setting up Christian Braun for a dunk with a crafty bounce pass, kicking the ball to Aaron Gordon for a 3-pointer and hitting a side-step 3 of his own off a Nikola Jokic assist. The Nuggets won Gillespie’s 11 minutes, 44 seconds, by 12 points.

“He can be a very, very solid player in this league for a long time,” DeAndre Jordan told The Denver Gazette in the postgame locker room.

Jordan has been one of Gillespie’s fans since they became teammates. Jordan was the first player to leave his seat off the bench and applaud after Gillespie’s first career bucket, and the veteran center was among the players to mob and pour water on the young guard’s head when he checked out for the last time.

“That’s my guy,” Jordan said.

“He’s a hard worker, man. Collin has overcome a lot of (crap). Obviously, he had a pretty bad injury last year that had him out the entire season, but he didn’t complain. He didn’t make excuses. He worked his ass off. He had a great Summer League. He’s been a great pro the entire time. A lot of young guys, their attitude probably would be different if they weren’t playing. This league is very surprising, you know what I’m saying? Like, obviously, he probably didn’t think he was going to play tonight, and he came in and helped us win the game.”

If the parents of the Nuggets’ newest scorer didn’t know how unpredictable NBA life can be, they had a better idea Sunday morning.

“They were probably like ‘Oh, he’s not going to play,’” Gillespie said of his slumbering parents.

“They learned their lesson.”