George Karl doesn’t like “secrecy” from Nuggets on Jamal Murray situation

Count former Nuggets head coach George Karl among the people who are not thrilled with how the team has handled the Jamal Murray injury situation.

Appearing on “Schlereth and Evans” on Tuesday morning following Denver’s disastrous 126-106 loss to the Warriors in Game 2 of the playoffs, Mike Evans asked Karl if the Nuggets have handled the Jamal Murray injury situation the right way.

“I don’t like how they handled it. I don’t like the secrecy of ‘well we’re going to see where it goes.’ You never know what the update is. I don’t know how they really truthfully behind closed doors have handled it,” Karl said.

Murray, who’s been out since April 12, 2021 with a torn ACL, has been cleared to play by team doctors but has yet to return to the court. Nuggets President Tim Connelly recently told “The Drive” the decision to return is “100 percent” up to Murray. Denver hasn’t been competitive in either of the first two games against Golden State without him.

“My thoughts and my desires is today’s world of injuries is changing. It seems to be much more of a conservative attitude than maybe ‘hey let’s get back on the court as soon as you can and get healthy.’ They keep saying that Jamal doesn’t have the confidence to go back on the court. I think anybody that’s had a serious knee injury will tell him, you’re never going to be 100 percent confident the first time you go back on the court,” Karl said. “It’s a process. You’ve got to go out there and you’ve got to jump off it and go ‘oh, it’s okay.’ And then you’ve got to jump off it again and go ‘oh, what happened there?'”

Murray took to Twitter late Monday night to express his frustration with fans who think he should be playing and helping a Nuggets team that looks overmatched.

Y’all don’t think I wanna be out there huh.. crazy

— Jamal Murray (@BeMore27) April 19, 2022

Karl thinks the former No. 7 overall pick could give Denver a much-needed spark in the coming games against a very talented Golden State team.

“If he’s cleared to be healthy and he’s ready to play, I would like him to be on the court. I don’t think he’s a 30-minute player, but he probably has the energy to maybe lift them on the home-court. You’ll get some better play from your role players on your home-court. Block out all the noise and just think about, we’ve got one game to win. If we win that game, the momentum will come back to us a little bit. And then we have another fight to try to get it back to even, try to get it back to 2-2,” Karl said.

It’s an interesting dilemma, as it might not be worth it for Murray to come back after all this missed time for only two more games. On the other hand, if Karl is right, and he can jumpstart them to getting the series tied up at two games apiece, then it’s definitely worth a shot.

Game 3 between the Nuggets and Warriors is on Thursday night at Ball Arena. You can listen to the full interview with Karl on Schlereth and Evans here.

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