Sacramento Kings forward Keegan Murray missed the first game of the week due to a left ankle sprain but returned to the lineup for the next two games.
Tuesday’s matchup against the Milwaukee Bucks saw the Kings without their top wing defender and outside shooter. Despite the second-year star’s absence, the Kings came out with the 129-94 blowout victory over the Eastern Conference contenders in Sacramento.
Murray was deemed healthy the next day and returned to the lineup for a home matchup against the Los Angeles Lakers, where the Kings grasped the 120-107 win. He played a team-high 39 minutes and furnished a double-double of 19 points and 11 rebounds. He added on three assists and two steals on 7-of-13 shooting from the floor and 5-of-10 from distance in the potential Play-In Tournament matchup.
The last game of the week took place on Saturday, where Sacramento suffered a 98-91 loss to the New York Knicks. Murray struggled against the best defensive team in the month of March, logging 11 points, six rebounds, one assist, and one block while shooting 3-of-12 from the field, 1-of-7 from three, and 4-of-4 from the line.
Sacramento currently sits as the sixth seed in the Western Conference with a 38-29 record, tied with the Dallas Mavericks and Phoenix Suns — both 39-29 — in terms of games behind the first-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder. The fifth-seeded New Orleans Pelicans sit two-and-a-half games above the Kings, while the ninth-seeded Golden State Warriors and the 10th-seeded Los Angeles Lakers sit three games behind the Suns. So, the Kings are seemingly guaranteed a Play-In Tournament spot at the very least with the possibility of securing a playoff spot.
Kris Murray
The 19-48 Portland Trail Blazers became the second team in the Western Conference and the fourth team overall to be eliminated from the postseason, joining the San Antonio Spurs of the West and the Washington Wizards and Detroit Pistons of the East.
Portland can solely shift its focus toward the development of its young players if it hasn’t done so already, thus including first-year forward Kris Murray. The rookie has played almost every game in the past two months for the Trail Blazers after spending the first half of the season bouncing back and forth between the NBA and G-League.
Kris Murray logged 19 minutes in the 121-99 loss to the Boston Celtics on Monday, finishing with two points, four rebounds, one assist, and one block. His most efficient performance of the week came two days later in a 106-102 win against the Atlanta Hawks, where he furnished nine points, six rebounds, two assists, one steal, and one block on 3-of-8 shooting from the floor, 1-of-3 from three, and 2-of-3 from the stripe in 35 minutes. His 17 plus-minus was the highest of any player in the game.
The rookie logged 31 minutes in a 105-93 loss to the New York Knicks on Thursday, finishing with 10 points, four rebounds, one assist, and one block while shooting 3-of-8 from the field, 2-of-6 from deep, and 2-of-2 on free throws. But Saturday’s 126-107 road loss against the New Orleans Pelicans saw Kris Murray go scoreless on four shot attempts. However, he logged five rebounds, four assists, and one block while ending the game with a plus-minus of two in 26 minutes.
Luka Garza
On March 7, Minnesota Timberwolves All-Star center Karl-Anthony Towns suffered a torn meniscus in his left knee. He had surgery to repair the ligament on March 12 and has been ruled out indefinitely. With Towns being out, third-year center Luka Garza should see more time on the court down the stretch of the regular season.
Though Garza didn’t appear in Tuesday’s 118-100 win over the Los Angeles Clippers due to filling in a G-League roster spot, he played 13 minutes in the 119-100 win over the Utah Jazz on Saturday. The big man provided nine points and three rebounds on 4-of-9 shooting from the floor and 1-of-4 from deep for a plus-minus of two in KAT’s absence.
Garza will have to fill a huge void as Minnesota continues its pursuit of the top seed in the Western Conference. The 46-21 Timberwolves are currently 2-2 since Towns’ injury and sit in the third spot behind the Thunder (47-20) and the Denver Nuggets (47-21) — just one game behind the first seed with less than a month to go in the regular season. But as they sit four games ahead of the Clippers (42-25), a top-three seed is more than likely unless they go on a losing skid along with a Clippers hot streak.
Joe Wieskamp
G-League guard Joe Wieskamp played just two of four games last week after suffering a hyperextended left elbow.
However, the two games he did appear in both ended in victories for the Maine Celtics, defeating the Delaware Blue Coats, 122-101, on Monday and again, 119-116, on Wednesday.
Wieskamp poured in 20 points, nine rebounds, one assist, and one block while shooting 8-of-14 from the field, 3-of-6 from three, and 1-of-1 from the line for a plus-minus of 17 in 34 minutes played in Monday’s victory. He turned around and logged a double-double of 12 points and 10 rebounds on 4-of-9 shooting from the floor, 1-of-5 from three, and 2-of-3 from the stripe for a plus-minus of seven in 39 minutes played on Wednesday.
The NBA’s Boston Celtics won all four games on the week by at least 16 points and are 17-3 since Feb. 1. They sit nine-and-a-half games above the second-seeded Milwaukee Bucks in the Eastern Conference standings and six games ahead of the Thunder for the best record in the league. Wieskamp will remain with the G-League affiliate for the rest of the season and push for the league title come postseason time.
