SAN ANTONIO — Early in the third quarter, Jamal Murray crumpled to the ground and took his time getting back up. Denver’s starting point guard was trying to navigate around a Jakob Poeltl ball screen but lost his balance after Poeltl jutted out his leg and caught Murray in the left thigh.
Murray rolled around in obvious discomfort. He stayed in the game, but it was clear there were lingering effects from what looked like a moving screen that went uncalled. From that point on, Murray shot 2-of-9 from the field as Denver faded in a 120-103 Game 6 loss in San Antonio.
As Murray rolled around in pain, Nuggets coach Michael Malone complained to the official standing next to him and called a timeout to further drive home his point. Asked about the play after the game, Malone wouldn’t say whether Poeltl’s screen was dirty but expressed frustration that the officials have missed a handful of moving screens throughout the series.
“I’ll have to rewatch it, but I think we all send in clips after every game,” Malone said. “I think there have been some illegal screens that have been missed. And the response from the league has been that we’re right. But for some reason, they don’t catch it during the game. I’ll have to watch that play obviously, but Jamal got taken out on that play. I don’t know if it was dirty or not. I don’t think Jakob Poeltl is a dirty player. I really don’t. But I’ll have to watch the film to see kind of how that happened and how Jamal went down with that injury. They’re a physical team. They set good screens. We have to learn from that.”
In Game 3, Poeltl clipped Murray on a similar play. Murray was heated enough to confront the Austrian center.
“Jakob Poeltl sets really good moving screens, and he does it the whole game, and he gets away with it,” Malone said.
Murray declined to speak to the media following the loss Thursday. He got dressed and limped out of the locker room to the team bus. The team is describing his injury as a left thigh contusion. Murray is expected to play in Game 7 on Saturday in Denver.
“Limping. But he’s tough as f***,” a team source told BSN Denver. “He’ll be ready to roll.”
