Keegan Murray puts up 30 points, breaks Kings’ rookie 3-point record

Murray snapped out of a recent slump in a major way on Monday to lead the Kings to a win over the Rockets.

Rookie Keegan Murray snapped out of a slump in a major way on Monday to lead the Sacramento Kings to a win on the road over the Houston Rockets.

Murray produced a career-high 30 points, six rebounds, two steals and one assist in 32 minutes of work in the 140-120 victory. He finished 11-of-17 from the field, including a career-high eight 3-pointers on 12 attempts.

The fourth pick is one of six rookies to score at least 30 points in a game this season. He broke the franchise 3-point record by a rookie (Rick Berry, 1989), and he is the only first-year player to hit eight in a game this season.

The performance came amid a cold streak by Murray.

He was averaging 5.6 points, seven rebounds and one assist on 20% shooting from 3-point range over his previous five games entering play on Monday. He went without a 3-point field goal twice in that span on six attempts in each of those games.

Kings coach Mike Brown was happy to see him break out of his slump.

If a guy is struggling with making a shot, you keep encouraging them to let it fly, especially if they spend time working on it. All of our guys spend time working on their shots, so I want our guys to keep shooting the basketball because they’ve shown over time that they’re really good shooters.

For us, there was never a doubt that we wanted him to stop shooting or his playing time was going to be affected — none of that was going to happen. We just wanted him to stay confident and keep letting that thing fly and eventually it was going to break.

The team certainly hopes his 30-point explosion will help him get back on track. He has emerged as a key player for the team and is a big reason the Kings are third in the Western Conference at 30-23 on the season.

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