The Denver Nuggets are on a roll and have won four straight games, with the latest being a 117-113 victory over the Dallas Mavericks on Monday. But one Nuggets player who had an early night in the team’s win against the Mavs was guard Jamal Murray, who was ejected late in the third quarter after hitting Tim Hardaway Jr. in the groin area.
It was clearly a cheap shot:
Jamal Murray was ejected after this play on Tim Hardaway Jr. pic.twitter.com/VtxEXAoQDN
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) January 26, 2021
Murray was whistled for a Flagrant 2 foul on the play, resulting in his ejection, as he finished the game with 16 points, three boards, and two assists after 25 minutes on the floor. Now, aside from the ejection, the 23-year-old was also handed a $25,000 fine by the NBA for the hit on Hardaway.
With Murray missing the rest of the game, it was Michael Porter Jr, and All Star center Nikola Jokic who stepped up for Denver and helped them get the victory to move up to 3-0 on their current road trip and 10-7 overall this season.
Hardaway, meanwhile, had already moved past the incident by the end of the game and was more affected by the loss than by what Murray did:
Hardaway on the Murray incident: "I was trying to do the best I could to deny the ball. The rest speaks for itself." Asked whether the league office needs to look into the play, Hardaway said, "It doesn't even matter at this point. What matters is we lost."
— Brad Townsend (@townbrad) January 26, 2021
After a strong postseason in the Nuggets' run to the Western Conference Finals last season, the former Kentucky Wildcat is averaging a career-best 19.3 points, 3.8 rebounds, and 4.3 assists while shooting 45.0% from the field and 34.0% from beyond the arc in 16 games. Murray will look to move past this incident as the Nuggets aim to continue rolling and gun for their fifth straight win when they face the Miami Heat on Wednesday.
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