NBA official breaks silence on Jamal Murray’s dangerous action in Nuggets loss

Denver Nuggets player Jamal Murray

The defending NBA champion Denver Nuggets fell behind 0-2 in their second-round series against the Minnesota Timberwolves with a frustrating, lopsided 106-80 Game 2 loss. As the Timberwolves started to pull away, Jamal Murray, amid another rough first half, threw a heat pack from the bench onto the floor as play was going on in apparent frustration.

While the referee closest to the incident stopped play momentarily, Murray nor the Nuggets were punished. But NBA official Marc Davis said they should have been.

In the post-game pool report with Davis, Vinny Benedetto of the Denver Gazette asked Davis about the heat pack incident.

“I was the lead official and I didn’t notice it was on the floor or where it came from until [Karl-Anthony] Towns scored,” Davis said. “We weren’t aware it had come from the bench. If we would have been aware it came from the bench, we could have reviewed it under the hostile act trigger. The penalty would have been a technical foul.”

While Murray would have been assessed a technical foul, Davis confirmed he would not have been ejected even if they had known at the time that he threw the heat pack.

“For an ejection, you would have to determine it was thrown directly at somebody versus thrown in frustration,” he said.

Benedetto also asked Davis about Nuggets coach Michael Malone getting in his face in the first quarter to yell about a no-call that Malone believed to be a charge on the Timberwolves.

“Although Coach Malone was visibly upset about both his team and the officials, I did not hear him say anything unsportsmanlike that warranted a technical foul,” Davis said.

Nuggets need improbable comeback in Minnesota

With their Game 2 loss, the Denver Nuggets now trail 0-2 in the series to the Minnesota Timberwolves. To make matters worse, the Nuggets lost both games in Denver and will now have to win at least one of the next two games in Minneapolis to ensure they will have another home game this postseason.

Any potential comeback looks about as improbable as it gets, though, considering the Nuggets’ poor play in Game 2. Denver’s typically incredible offense was limited to just 35 first-half points and 80 total points, the latter of which is the fewest for the team in both the regular season and postseason since Sept. 1, 2020.

If the Nuggets do manage to come back in the series, they will become just the seventh team in NBA history to erase an 0-2 deficit in a playoff series in which they lost their first two home games. Historically, teams that have gone down 0-2 in the playoffs are 33-421 in coming back and winning the series.

If there is a team that is capable of coming from the proverbial dead, though, it likely would be the Nuggets. Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, and Co. overcame back-to-back 3-1 deficits in the 2020 playoffs, during which they defeated the Utah Jazz and Los Angeles Clippers en route to a Western Conference Finals appearance. The Nuggets also proved how great they could be with last year’s dominant run to the first NBA championship in franchise history.

If the Nuggets are to come back, they will almost certainly need to win Game 3, which is set for Friday at 7:30 p.m. MT.

Tags: Denver Nuggets