Jamal Murray was not happy during the Denver Nuggets’ blowout loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves on Monday night. During a contentious second quarter, Murray threw a heat pack on the floor in the middle of action. On Tuesday morning’s edition of Get Up, Jay Williams and Tim Legler both agreed that Murray should earn a suspension.
Williams called the move immature and Legler pointed out how bad the injury could have been if Karl-Anthony Towns had stepped on it. Not to mention the fact that one of Murray’s own teammates could have slipped on the heat pack and been injured as well, which makes it extra reckless.
To make matters worse, Murray was also caught throwing a towel that landed harmlessly at a referee’s feet moments earlier. When you add the two throws together it makes you wonder if he wasn’t just throwing stuff on the court, but actually throwing things at the referee. Whatever his intentions were, he was throwing a fit.
Murray somehow lucked out because none of the referees saw what happened, which Timberwolves coach Chris Finch mentioned while calling out Murray for the dangerous act during this postgame press conference.
“It’s inexcusable and dangerous,” Finch said. “And I’m sure it was just a mistake and an oversight. I’m sure there was nothing intentional by the officiating at all. But certainly can’t allow that to happen.”
The thing is, if a fan threw something on the floor, he would be ejected. It wouldn’t matter if the referees saw it. But when you consider what Mike Malone got away with earlier in the game when he was screaming in the face of Dedric Taylor, you have to wonder if they actually would have done anything to Murray if they watched him throw the heat pack.
Dewayne Dedmond was ejected from a game last season for throwing a massage gun onto the court during a game. Dedmond was throwing a tantrum on the bench after an argument with Erik Spoelstra. Since he was thrown out of the game, he had already been punished by the league when the Heat suspended him a game without pay. In Murray’s case, he should have been ejected, but he wasn’t even given a single technical.
A suspension seems like a no-brainer for the NBA here. Murray not getting so much as a technical foul for throwing multiple things — with one of those objects going on the floor in the middle of action — seems like a bad precedent to set. The way these two teams are playing right now, it doesn’t even seem it would have any affect on the outcome of the series. The officials didn’t do anything about this during the game so it’s the league’s duty now.
