For Trey Murphy, the toughest part of his recent shooting slump had nothing to do with a loss of confidence, adjusting his mechanics or even dealing with mental hurdles.
It was all the questions he had to answer about it.
“It felt like every day someone would try to come up to me and talk about it,” Murphy told The Athletic. “I’m like, ‘Man, my dog didn’t die. I’m fine.’ I have so many other things going on in life. Missing a few shots won’t tear me down.”
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The third-year forward has never lacked belief in himself. It’s one of the traits that enticed the New Orleans Pelicans to take him with the No. 17 pick in the 2021 NBA Draft.
Murphy’s unwavering confidence helped establish him as one of the NBA’s top sharpshooters early in his career. Through his first two seasons, Murphy shot 40 percent from 3-point distance on 683 attempts. Only nine other players with 650 or more attempts during that span exceeded 40 percent, and only one (Philadelphia’s Tyrese Maxey) was younger than Murphy. The 6-foot-9, 206-pound Murphy offered the exact skill set the Pelicans needed to modernize their offense and was on his way to becoming the perfect complement to stars Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram. After a slow start to his rookie season, Murphy had gradually improved in every aspect of his game, with few hiccups along the way.
That is, until his shot suddenly stopped falling.
The 23-year-old Murphy missed the first 21 games of this season while recovering from offseason surgery to repair a torn meniscus in his left knee. When he returned, he felt fine physically. He just couldn’t get anything going on offense. In the 21 games Murphy played from Jan. 5 to Feb. 25, he shot 38.3 percent from the floor and a lowly 30.8 percent on 3-pointers. He was still averaging 7.4 long-range attempts per game, but the shots weren’t going in.
“I was taking good shots. A lot of the shots I was taking felt good coming out of my hand,” he said. “I just wasn’t making them.”
Now, he is. Starting with a breakout performance Feb. 27 against the New York Knicks, Murphy has gone from the guy who couldn’t buy a bucket to the guy who has made 32 of his last 65 attempts from deep. He’s tied with Cleveland’s Darius Garland for the most 3-pointers in the NBA during that stretch, except Garland has played two more games.
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Unsurprisingly, the Pelicans caught fire as a team at the same time Murphy found his groove. They are 5-1 over their last six games, including wins by 23 points over the Knicks, 27 points over the Pacers and 41 points over the Raptors. They’ve led by at least 20 points in each of their last four games, all wins.
And after a 116-103 win Sunday over the Atlanta Hawks, the Pelicans (39-25) hold a two-game cushion over the sixth-seeded Phoenix Suns and are only 2 1/2 games behind the fourth-seeded LA Clippers, who come to New Orleans on Friday. Hopes of dodging the Play-In Tournament are suddenly turning into dreams of home-court advantage in a first-round series for the first time since Chris Paul’s heyday 16 seasons ago.
“It’s devastating to our opponents. When Trey is making shots, they’ve got to burn timeouts. They’ve got figure out how to guard him,” coach Willie Green said. “His shot-making ability opens the floor for the rest of the team.”
Weeks ago, as the misses piled up and frustration started to build, Murphy refused to do anything outside the norm to get himself back on track. He stuck with his daily routine. He took the same number of shots at practice. He tried to play the exact same way he always has throughout his career. He believed it’d be an overreaction to make significant changes to his shooting form or normal work process.
“It wasn’t really complicated,” Murphy said. “The last thing I wanted to do is overcomplicate things.”
There was one thing Murphy did that was at least somewhat out of the ordinary: He reached out to former Pelican and current ESPN analyst JJ Redick for help.
Murphy was a guest on “The Old Man and The Three” podcast last year and has maintained a close relationship ever since with Redick, who played 15 years in the NBA and ranks No. 20 on the all-time 3-pointers list. In the past, Murphy received advice from Redick on how to grow as a shooter and act like a professional away from the court. This time, he wanted to pick Redick’s brain on getting back on track when shots aren’t falling.
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Redick’s advice was simple: Keep stacking up small victories until the pile is too tall to overlook.
“He was telling me that a lot of times, as he was coming off a cold streak, the first game won’t always be you going 10-of-12 on 3s,” Murphy recalled. “Sometimes it’s a 3-for-7, then a 5-for-12, or something like that. You don’t get it all back in one time. You’ve got to take the small wins sometimes and be OK with that.”
So Murphy stopped worrying about the 3-point column in the box score and focused on making an impact everywhere else. He picked up his effort on defense. He chased after rebounds. He sprinted in transition consistently.
Over time, those other parts of his game started to blossom. He picked up three blocks and three steals in a win over Houston on Feb. 22. He tied his career high with 10 rebounds in a loss against Chicago on Feb. 25. He set a career high with seven assists in a loss against the Pacers on Feb. 28.
“That was one of our messages (to him) during our talks. There are so many ways you can impact winning. If you just take your focus off of your shot and focus on defense and rebounding … it’ll come,” Green said. “The ball usually finds energy. When you play with that kind of energy, it leads to you making shots.”
Then the floodgates finally opened, and not how Redick expected. The Pelicans manhandled a short-handed Knicks squad 115-92 on Feb. 27, and Murphy finished with 26 points, seven rebounds and four assists while shooting 9 of 14 from the floor and 6 of 11 from 3.
After he drilled his final shot of the night, his fourth straight in a game-sealing fourth-quarter run, Murphy beelined to make eye contact with Green as he walked off the floor. Green extended his arms with a big smile and screamed, “Welcome back!” to Murphy before the two exchanged a quick hug.
You can see Willie tell Trey "Welcome Back" 😅 pic.twitter.com/8VJbsUQoY4
— Pelicans Film Room (@PelsFilmRoom) February 28, 2024
“The biggest thing for me was just getting back to having fun out there,” Murphy said. “After the All-Star break, my biggest focus was to always have fun playing basketball. I try to play the right way every time I go out there — play hard, get rebounds and stuff like that. When you play the game the right way, it’ll always reward you in the end.”
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The rewards have come in abundance for Murphy as of late. Three games after his breakout against the Knicks, Murphy scored 34 points in 29 minutes while shooting a sizzling 10 of 14 on 3-pointers in a 139-98 win on the road against the Raptors. He became just the seventh player in NBA history to have multiple games with at least 10 made 3-pointers in their careers, having also done so last March in a win over the Clippers.
On Sunday, his 28 points in 30 minutes spearheaded a wire-to-wire road victory over the Hawks to push the Pelicans to 14 games over .500 for the first time since they ended the 2017-18 season with a 48-34 record.
“When he makes shots, the defense has to space the floor. They’ve got to pick their poison,” Ingram told The Athletic. “It opens up lanes for me and Z to get downhill. It makes it really hard for defenses to decide whether they want to stop us from getting to the basket or leave him open to knock down the 3-balls.”
It’s pretty simple: When Murphy makes shots, this team is unguardable. Since he entered the league, the Pelicans are 27-6 when Murphy makes at least four 3-pointers in a game, including wins in each of the last 11 games he has reached that number. If the Pelicans have any chance of winning at the highest level, Murphy must be a huge part of that equation.
As he goes, so go the Pelicans.
(Top photo: Tim Nwachukwu / Getty Images)
