Suffice to say Dejounte Murray enjoyed his first game in a New Orleans Pelicans uniform a lot more than his long-awaited second.
Boos rained down from a large and initially lively Thanksgiving eve crowd as they watched the visiting Toronto Raptors — a team that came in winless in 10 road games — take a 34-point lead in the second half.
“If you’re not embarrassed and really mad about this, that’s a problem,” Murray said after New Orleans’ 119-93 loss on Wednesday night extended its losing streak to six games.
“It’s not really about the loss, [but] how we lost in front of our fans,” Murray continued. “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 Pelicans have looked star crossed since Murray fractured his hand at the end of an opening night victory over Chicago on Oct. 23. With Zion Williamson and other starters still in the lineup, they managed to start 2-0.
Since then, injuries have struck the top eight players in the Pelicans’ rotation, and New Orleans has lost 15 of 17 to drop to 4-15 overall in the highly competitive Western Conference.
Injuries to Murray, Williamson (left hamstring), Brandon Ingram (right calf), CJ McCollum (right adductor) Herb Jones (right shoulder), Trey Murphy III (left knee bruise), Jose Alvarado (left hamstring) and Jordan Hawkins (back) have taken a toll.
Murray missed 17 games before his return to the lineup Wednesday, one game after McCollum had come back from a 13-game absence. Williamson, Ingram, Murphy, Jones and Alvarado all remained out of the lineup.
“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,” Murray added. “Tonight, it was just disgusting. We’ve got to compete. We’ve got to play harder, no matter who’s on the floor.”
Murray was unsurprisingly rusty, missing his first seven shots before finishing with 14 points. McCollum scored 19. But that wasn’t nearly enough to compensate for what coach Willie Green and McCollum suggested was soft defense against Toronto.
The Raptors arrived in New Orleans last in the NBA in 3-pointerss made per game at 10.4. They proceeded to make a season-best 21 against the Pelicans.
“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.”
Green, the Pelicans fourth-year coach, lamented what he called “a lack of competition.”
“We allowed a team to come on our home floor and really make us look soft,” Green said. “That’s what I told our group. That can’t happen.”
The Pelicans have 63 games left to try to climb back into contention for at least a play-in berth. Their performance at Memphis on Friday night will show how serious they are about turning things around.
“We allowed a team to come on our home floor and really make us look soft. That’s what I told our group. That can’t happen.”
Pelicans coach Willie Green
Players were given part of Thursday off to spend the holiday with family before taking a short flight to Memphis on Thursday night.
“As soon as we get on that plane, we got to lock in to understanding what just happened,” Murray said. “You don’t want bad habits to carry over.”
While McCollum stressed that injuries have made it “hard to establish rhythms and rotations,” he described the latest loss as “just a bad game that we can’t have.”
“Time is ticking,” McCollum said. “And it isn’t getting any easier.”
