Trey Murphy III highlighted his season-high 30-point performance with six 3-pointers – a pair from behind the arc – and the New Orleans Pelicans lost several starters to beat the Sacramento Kings 136-104 on Sunday night. Absenteeism overcome.
“Just keep shooting, whether you’re hitting or not,” said Murphy, who had missed 21 of 31 in his last five games. “Eventually, your percentage tends to get to where it’s supposed to be. So, I’m glad my teammates found me and I was able to get the shot down.”
CJ McCollum scored 24 points for the Pelicans, who shot 57.1% overall and combined to hit 14 of 26 from 3-point range after struggling deep during their recent 10-game losing streak.
Willie Hernangomez had 22 points and 16 rebounds, and Naji Marshall scored 17 points for New Orleans, which led the way to a second straight win with 35 points.
In addition to being without All-Star forward Zion Williamson (right hamstring) for the 18th straight game, the Pelicans also took the field without high-scoring wing Brandon Ingram and starting center Jonas Valancius.
Ingram, who recently returned from a left big toe injury, was given the night off after scoring 35 points in Saturday night’s win over the Los Angeles Lakers. After leaving the Lakers game, Valanciunas sat out with right quadriceps muscle soreness.
Pelicans coach Willie Green said, “Everybody understood we were down a few guys, so we needed to step up.” “Everyone who touched the floor today contributed. It started with our defense, deflections, challenging shots, rebounding the ball and we played fast tonight.
Malik Monk scored 16 for the Kings, who lost their second straight game without D’Auron Fox. He is away from the team due to unspecified personal reasons. Domantas Sabonis had 12 points and 11 rebounds, while Trey Lyles scored 12.
“We’ve had a great year so far and we’ve experienced a lot of highs. And now we’ve hit a bit of a rough patch,” said Kings coach Mike Brown.
Brown continued, “I don’t know if we’re all like we talked about at the beginning of the year and how we are because things are flowing and we’re winning and third place or whatever.” “I’m going to watch and see how we all handle it. It’s tough to go through, but it’s a great thing for this team to experience. Because if we hope to make the playoffs and we hope to advance in the playoffs, If we do, we have to deal with adversity. … And, right now, I don’t think we’re doing a very good job with it.
Murphy attempted 11 shots, hitting nine shots, including a dunk made by his fake ball at the start of a baseline drive.
“B.I. was out, so someone had to be the BI,” Murphy said, referring to Ingram. “So, I asked my B.I. skill set.”
New Orleans scored the first five points of the game, led by more than 20 in the first half, and never trailed.
After giving up 70 first-half points in their previous two games, the Pelicans scored as many in the first half against Sacramento, going up 70–50 on Kira Lewis Jr.’s 3 before Monk’s driving finger-roll Made the score 70-52. half the time
The lead grew to 30 when Larry Nance Jr.’s free throw made it 80–50 less than six minutes into the third period. Minutes later, Murphy’s rainbow 3 from 29 feet made it 93–60.