ATLANTA – could only crack a joke at the Nuggets’ unfortunate rash of injuries that threatened to spread even deeper down the bench Saturday night.
“Our bench is going to our bench,” he said with a tongue-in-cheek laugh following Saturday’s demoralizing 106-98 loss to the . “We got Juancho (Hernangomez) playing the four. Everything comes off as improvising, a little bit out of our comfort zone sometimes. We might call on (injured rookies) Jarred (Vanderbilt) and to come in the game, you never know.”
One night after losing to a broken right big toe – the third starter who’s been bedeviled by injuries – it looked like Murray might be the latest Nuggets starter to sustain an ailment. He took a reckless kick to the shin from Hawks forward Justin Anderson late in the second quarter that limited him to just 7:44 in the second half.
“I got kicked I think in an awkward spot,” he said after scoring just four points on 2-of-9 shooting.
Nuggets coach Michael Malone said the incident was compounded because Murray had been battling shin soreness.
“I didn’t think Jamal had a good game before he got hurt or after he got hurt,” Malone said. “I thought this was one of the tougher games that he’s had. That shin has been bothering him prior to tonight. Itap one of those injuries where you try to protect it, but every kick, hit, anytime it gets touched itap probably really, really painful for him. He’s trying to fight through that. I thought tonight was a tough night for Jamal. Once we get home and try to get whole again, get healthy and get some rest, he’ll come back better for us next game.”
Murray returned to the game sporting a sleeve over his right shin and hobbled by a noticeable limp.
“I got in there, had a turnover just because I wasn’t ready for what they had, being out, sitting out for 10 minutes and all that,” Murray said. “I just riled myself up to get in the game, and that hurt me in terms of they were already riled up to play. Next time I get hurt I just got to take it slower and get back to basics.”
The Nuggets avoided catastrophe, but Malone was agitated over his team’s passing and the third-quarter defense. The Hawks, led by Vince Carter’s 11, outscored the Nuggets 35-21 in the period to open up the game.
“This was one of our worst performances of the year,” Malone said. “We had a lot of guys who had really bad nights. It was by far our worst passing game since I’ve been here. We couldn’t pass the ball from A to B. We couldn’t get the ball inside. Itap just a lack of discipline, lack of awareness, lack of execution. Itap a tough way to finish up a long road trip.”
For what itap worth, he didn’t attribute his team’s lack of focus to the mounting injuries that have plagued them on the road trip.
“That would take away any credit given to (the Hawks), and give them credit,” he said. “They came out in the third quarter and beat our butts. I’m not going to use the excuse of guys sitting there saying we’re injured. That allows that itap OK for us to come out and not play to the best of our ability.”
The Nuggets, which started the road trip with impressive wins in Portland and Toronto, fizzled over their final two games at Charlotte and Atlanta. Itap fair to chalk up Saturday’s loss to road-weary legs, but the more pressing and big-picture issue is the team’s health. Fortunately, that situation didn’t get any more dire Saturday night.
