Keegan Murray answers Kings’ plea in preseason loss to Warriors originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
The Kings want Keegan Murray to be more offensively aggressive this season as they rely on his Year 2 jump to sustain their newfound success.
Thirty-six seconds into Sacramento’s fourth preseason game, he showed that he’s on the right track.
In the Kings’ second possession of Wednesday’s preseason matchup with the Golden State Warriors, Murray implemented the dribble handoff game and screen set by Domantas Sabonis to cruise past Jonathan Kuminga, attack the basket and throw down a vicious dunk over Klay Thompson.
The explosiveness Murray brought within the first minute of action would carry over throughout the entire game.
Murray had seven of Sacramento’s first 12 points, and finished the night with 24 points on 55.6 percent (10 of 18) shooting, with eight rebounds, two assists and two steals in 35 minutes.
The 23-year-old forward, who the Kings selected No. 4 overall in last year’s draft, erupted from behind the arc last season while breaking the rookie 3-point record. While Kings coach Mike Brown and Co. still want the second-year player to let it fly from downtown, they are challenging Murray to create his own shot more and find other ways to contribute on offense.
So he put the work in all offseason, and no one knows that better than Kings teammate and NBA All-Star De’Aaron Fox, who worked with Murray nearly every day this summer.
“That’s a lot of the stuff that we worked on this summer,” Fox said after the Kings’ 116-115 loss at Chase Center. “He’s getting more comfortable and those are tough shots. At times, you miss those shots, but he had it going for us tonight. We need to put him in more positions to continue to do that for us.”
In the Kings’ previous preseason game, which also was against the Warriors, Murray wasn’t happy with his shot selection in the 121-115 overtime loss on Sunday at Golden 1 Center.
Murray finished with nine points on 42.9 percent (3 of 7) shooting from the field and 3 of 6 from deep. After the first preseason loss to Golden State, he knew he had to switch things up on Wednesday.
“Offensively, I feel like I settled a lot last game so I was just trying to go to the basket a little bit more and I feel like that helped a lot to spread my game out,” Murray said after the game.
At Media Day earlier this month, Kings general manager Monte McNair said “it’s no secret” that Murray will be the centerpiece of Sacramento’s lofty goals this season as the team looks to take its playoff aspirations into championship contention.
And if Murray continues to play like what he displayed on Wednesday, which is something Fox anticipates, the Kings are right on course.
“Yeah, that’s what we want from him,” Fox said. “Obviously, there are games where the aggressiveness kind of goes away and that’s just the nature of being a human being. But we want him to be playing like that even if shots aren’t going in, we want him to be aggressive.”
