Through two games of the 2019-20 season, San Antonio Spurs guard Dejounte Murray is averaging 18.5 points, nine rebounds, five assists, and 2.5 steals per game. Murray is tallying all those statistics while being on a minutes restriction to start the season.
Prior to Monday’s Spurs – Portland Trail Blazers game, San Antonio Spurs Head Coach Gregg Popovich provided some details on Murray’s return plan.
“5-5-5-5,” said Popovich of Murray’s initial minutes plan. “There’s not much else you can do. If you sit him too long, if you say ‘well I’m gonna save him for the last five minutes of the game,’ and he ends up sitting too long, that’s probably not good for him.”
“So we just have to live with it.”
“As we move forward, he won’t participate in back-to-backs, so we just have to use the process and see what all the doctors and trainers and rehab people tell us, and live with that.”
Murray is basically sticking to that plan for now, where he’s just above 20 minutes per game with 23.4 minutes to be exact. Popovich also didn’t indicate whether Murray would sit on the first or second night of a back-to-back. This week, the Spurs have a back-to-back set Thursday against the Clippers and Friday against the Warriors.
Lastly, Popovich didn’t provide a timeline for how long Murray will be on this initial return plan.
