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E-mail Xinhua, March 6, 2024
New Orleans Pelicans forward Trey Murphy III scored a season-best 34 points and matched his career-high with 10 3-pointers in the team's 139-98 win over the Toronto Raptors on Tuesday evening.
With the win, the Pelicans improved to 37-25 on the season and 19-13 on the road. Since bowing out of the In-Season Tournament with a 44-point blowout loss to the Los Angeles Lakers in the semifinals, the team has turned their season around amassing a 25-14 record since, including 15-6 on the road.
In the victory over Toronto, New Orleans excelled from beyond the arc, attempting a season-high 49 while converting 24, one shy of their season-best set on January 17 against the Charlotte Hornets.
Guard Herb Jones also netted a career-high five threes, with four of them in the first quarter alone, to finish with 17 points.
The first six minutes of the first quarter was a seesaw battle between the teams before Jones and his teammates went on a 23-7 run to close the quarter and take a 14-point lead.
The lead widened to 23 points after the second quarter and 30 after the third. The 41-point margin of victory is the largest this season for the Pelicans, eclipsing the 38-point victory over the Raptors one month prior.
"Collectively as a team, it was a dominant performance wire-to-wire," said Pelicans head coach Willie Green after the team's league-leading 15th victory by a margin of 20 or more points. "The challenge for us is looking at ourselves in the mirror with the mentality that we want to be dominant every game."
All five starters finished with double-digit scoring despite playing less than 26 minutes each due to the game being out of reach. Former No. 1 draft pick Zion Williamson had a well-rounded game with 16 points, nine assists, and eight rebounds.
With 20 games remaining on the season, New Orleans remains in the fifth seed with a 1.5 game lead on Phoenix (35-26) and two-game lead on Sacramento (34-26). Green hopes to hold on to remain in the top six to avoid the play-in tournament after participating for the last two seasons.
