NBA to investigate Dejounte Murray after confronting referee
As the final buzzer sounded on Sunday afternoon in Game 4 between the Atlanta Hawks and Boston Celtics, which resulted in a 129-121 Celtics win to put them up 3-1 in the series, Hawks guard Dejounte Murray made contact with official Gediminas Petraitis. Now, the NBA will investigate the situation, according to ESPN’s Tim Bontemps.
Everyone knows that you can’t make contact with an official. In fact, if the contact was deemed intentional, it’s a violation that could warrant an automatic suspension. It’s hard to speculate whether or not Murray will get suspended, but from my view, the contact looked intentional.
He clearly was upset over the way something was ruled during the game and got in the ref’s face about it. NBA fans know that the league has suspended players for lesser violations.
The Hawks need Murray, as he is one of their primary scorers. Murray, 26, started 74 games for the Hawks alongside Trae Young in the backcourt. He averaged 20.5 points, 6.1 assists and 5.3 rebounds per game in the regular season. Murray has also been crucial for Atlanta throughout the playoffs so far, shooting nearly 39.4 percent from 3-point range along with 25.3 points per game in 38.2 minutes per game.
This has been a controversial first round across the league. Notably in the Western Conference, Golden State’s Draymond Green was suspended one game for stomping on Domantas Sabonis. Dillon Brooks was also ejected from Memphis’ Game 3 matchup against the Lakers for nut-tapping LeBron James. Murray could be added to this list of detention slips that the league has given out.
The Hawks will be at a big disadvantage without Murray if he gets suspended. On the brink of elimination, Atlanta will have to win three straight against Boston if they want to move on, a task that is already daunting in itself.
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