There was a bit of controversy surrounding the Los Angeles Lakers' Game 1 victory over the Denver Nuggets on Friday, and much of it stemmed from what others are considering to be bad officiating by the game referees. Denver star Jamal Murray opened up about the performance of the game officials in Game 1, and the 23-year-old has opted to take a high-road approach.
Murray refused to use the referees as the scapegoat for the Nuggets' lopsided loss:
“I’m not going to sit here and blame it on the refs. That’s not what I’m doing,” Murray said, via Mark Kiszla of the Denver Post. “We’ve got to play through it and earn their respect.”
To be fair, there were a number of contentious calls throughout the contest, which led to both Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokic being in foul trouble early in the game. Then again, there's no denying that the Nuggets were outmatched by a powerhouse Lakers side on Friday, so as Murray said above, they can't blame this defeat on the officials.
Instead, Murray expressed how the Nuggets will just need to somehow find a way to overcome this hurdle:
“Just try to play through it,” he added (h/t Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN) “It's tough. They want to talk about every call and have full conversations and try to manipulate what happens, but you can't worry about it. We know how it's going to be. We know we're the younger team.”
That's a bit of a veiled shot aimed at the Lakers there, with Murray pointing out how L.A. try to influence the referees. It is interesting to see what type of effect — if any — all this noise is going to have on how the referees handle Game 2 on Sunday.
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