It is official. Flip Murray is for real. It may have been easy for people, especially Milwaukee supporters, to dismiss his start of the season as flukey, but Murray tonight in Minnesota proved just how good he really is. With the Sonics down eight after three quarters, Murray took over. Not only did he score 11 in to spark a 28-19 last quarter, they were all clutch baskets and freethrows that got Seattle back into the game. But, the best was yet to come. Murray iced two foulshots with 22 seconds to go to give Seattle a 3-point lead, only to watch opponent Latrell Sprewell nail an outside jumper to tie the scores up with 14 seconds remaining. After a timeout, Murray calmly netted a fallaway jumper right in front of the Minnesota bench to give the Sonics an 89-87 victory, their first in Minnesota since 1998, and walked away with fists pumping. Murray finished with a career high 29 points, and added 8 assists and 6 rebounds just for good measure. Murray's form spells good news for Rashard Lewis too. Lewis was double and triple teamed the whole game, still finishing with 11, 5 and 3. However, now teams can't afford to put this much defense on him due to Murray, Lewis will not have to endure the amounts of defensive pressure that were on show in Minnesota. Jerome James frustratingly showed glimpses of his talent, totalling 14, 4 and 3 blocks, including 2 clutch freethrows and a key block on Sam Cassell late in the Sonics last quarter run. Brent Barry again ran the ship well with 13, 4 and 3, whilst Vladimir Radmanovic continued his shooting slump with 6 points on 3-13 shooting, including 0-5 from downtime for the second game running. He added 7 boards. For the Timberwolves it was their big 3 doing the damage. Garnett had 26, 13 and 4, but missed two clutch freethrows late in the last. Sam Cassell had 15 and 13 assists, whilst Sprewell scored 20, whilst adding 5 dimes and a clutch three at the death. Reggie Evans had 9 rebounds off the bench for Seattle, who held a 41-34 edge on the boards. They outshot the wolves 46% to 44, had more points in the paint and doubled their fastbreak points, 12-6, to reflect the Sonics impressive run-and-gun style offense. For Murray, it was yet another lesson on his abilities, and the Timberwolves joined the Blazers and Clippers as teams to learn the hard way. Murray was exceptional from the stripe, going 11-12, and 9-18 overall from the field in 35 minutes. This guy is for real, and opposition defenses had better wake up pretty soon. Boxscore: http://www.nba.com/games/20031111/SEAMIN/boxscore.html Next game: @ Milwaukee, Wed Nov 12, 5pm
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting twolvefan11:</div><div class="quote_post">I didn't get to see the game, but is this guy for real? Or is he just hot for right now?</div> Read my article in the Exclusives forum The kid is def. for real, only thing that stopped him going to a big college was his academic results, so he's come through the hard way.
I feel that Murray is legit. Not only is he clutch, but he's scoring very consistently, right from day one. The Sonics have a real find on their hands.
