Nuggets’ Murray makes homecoming of sorts

Jamal Murray couldn’t quite make it all the way home, so he brought a lot of home to the Air Canada Centre for Halloween.

The Kitchener native had wanted to head west on the 401 to make an appearance during the lone Toronto stopover of his rookie campaign with the Denver Nuggets, but could not make the logistics work.

Instead, by Murray’s estimation, upward of 100 high school teammates, coaches, family and friends came to see him suit up against the team he grew up cheering for.

Now, people will be in that arena rooting him on, perhaps even a few Raptors fans along with his large support group.

On Monday morning, Murray said he wasn’t sure what the reception would be like for the Monday night encounter.

“I don’t know. I don’t know. Hopefully a clap or two. I’m not focusing on that.

“You want to hear something, but you can’t focus on that. You just go out there and play your game and remember your plays.”

If it all seemed a little surreal, Murray wasn’t letting on when asked if he ever saw this day coming.

“Yeah. I worked for it to happen. I truly believed it would happen,” Murray said.

Two games in, he has quickly become aware that he isn’t in Kansas (or in his case, Kentucky) anymore. After setting some scoring records while with the Wildcats last year, when he averaged 20 points and 5.2 rebounds per game as a freshman, Kentucky coach John Calipari called Murray the best player in the draft.

But Murray went in the No. 7 slot and finds himself on one of the deepest young teams in the NBA. He played only 25 combined minutes during his first two appearances and didn’t score a basket.

“It’d be good,” Murray said of getting on the board in Canada. “It’s going to be a lot of fun to get that first basket, especially at home.”