Ex-Husky Murray Draws Playoff Suspension, But Team Survives

The former UW guard was punished for bumping a ref.

In what better resembled a pickup game dust-up at Seattle's Rainier Beach High or the University of Washington, both former schools of his, Dejounte Murray bumped a referee on Sunday while leaving the floor following an Atlanta Hawks' 129-121 loss to the Boston Celtics and he immediately drew a one-game suspension.

Everything is all better now.

On Tuesday night, Murray sat out Game 5 and watched his Hawks somehow survive without him, with teammate Trae Young scoring the team's final 14 points and sinking a 30-footer right before the buzzer to pull out an electrifying 119-117 victory to extend the series against Boston.

Murray, a Seattle native who played just one UW basketball season in 2015-16 before turning pro, had been averaging 25.3 points per game in the postseason series.

He was shown in a video posted on social media bumping referee Gediminas Petraitis while leaving the floor the game on Sunday night in Atlanta.

"I'm a grown man and I hold my own and I take full responsibility for not being able to play for my teammates, and the fans and just the organization as a whole," Murray said before Game 5. "But at the end of the day, there's a lot that led up to that, and I think a lot of players could relate to those frustrations. ... At the end of the day, I feel like, I don't think I should have been suspended."

Murray said the altercation was caused by long-simmering feud between him and Petraitis the official, dating back to his days with the San Antonio Spurs.

"A lot of ignoring, a lot of brushing me off, brushing my teammates off when asking questions of how we could be better," Murray said. "And even just with that individual, it goes back to San Antonio, where, I don't know why that person treated me the way he treated me over the years."

Murray, whose Atlanta coach is Seattle native Quin Snyder, will be back in the lineup for Thursday's game in Boston.

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