Dejounte Murray hasn’t been in New Orleans all that long, but he knows something has got to change.
The crowd at Smoothie King Center in New Orleans was relatively lively and upbeat to start the game against the Raptors on Wednesday night.
But when the the visitors – who were 0-10 in their last road games – took a 34-point lead in the second half, the boos from the crowd came hard and fast and Murray didn’t blame them one bit.
“If you’re not embarrassed and really mad about this, that’s a problem,” Murray said.
“It’s not really about the loss, [but] how we lost in front of our fans. Like, even the fans booing – I mean, what would you do if you was a fan paying your money? You want to come watch a competitive basketball game, especially from your home team. So, they got all the rights to say what they want, feel how they feel. They deserve a better game.”
The loss extended the Pels’ losing streak to six games. Granted, injuries to Murray himself, Zion Williamson, Brandon Ingram, CJ McCollum, Herb Jones, Trey Murphy III, Jose Alvarado and Jordan Hawkins certainly haven’t helped the team’s cause.
“When you’ve got guys in, guys out, guys in, guys out, it’s really tough,” Murray said. “But I think it’s not tough to compete.
“You can’t get punked. You can’t get pushed around. Tonight, it was just disgusting. We’ve got to compete. We’ve got to play harder, no matter who’s on the floor.”
It was Murray’s return on Wednesday after missing 17 games with a fractured left hand and was McCollum’s second game back after missing most of this month’s games with an adductor strain.
“Either they got better overnight, or we’ve got to do a better job closing out and making it more difficult,” McCollum said.
“It was a horrible showing,” he added. “From top to bottom, we’ve all got to be better.”
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