The Memphis Grizzlies will have momentum and motivation on their side when they make their Christmas Day debut against the Golden State Warriors on Sunday night in San Francisco.
After a dominating 125-100 road triumph over the Phoenix Suns on Friday, the Grizzlies were able to turn their attention to the team that eliminated them in a tense six-game playoff series last May.
Memphis lost star Ja Morant to a knee injury late in a Game 3 loss to Golden State. He missed the rest of the series and the Grizzlies lost four games to two.
The Warriors also suffered a key injury in Game 2 of the series when Gary Payton II fractured his elbow following a serious foul by Dillon Brooks, who received a one-game suspension. Payton also missed the rest of the series.
Ranked third in the Western playoffs, Golden State moved ahead of the second-seeded Grizzlies by winning Game 1 on the road and then sweeping all three of its home games. It took a late five-point 3-point flurry from Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Andrew Wiggins to rebound from a fourth-quarter deficit in the deciding Game 6.
The Grizzlies didn’t take the elimination well. Not only did several players and coach Taylor Jenkins loudly complain about their belief that the Warriors’ Jordan Poole caused Morant’s injury, but Morant himself insisted that Memphis would have advanced had it not been for the accident.
Morant recently added fuel to the fire when asked about the road to a possible championship this season. He said it came through Boston, and when given the opportunity to throw defending champion Golden State into the conversation, he replied, “No, I’m fine out West. “
The Grizzlies looked more than good as they beat the defending West regular season champion Suns in their intro to Golden State’s rematch.
Jaren Jackson Jr. and Brandon Clarke had 24 points and 10 rebounds each, Desmond Bane came back from a toe injury to participate with 17 points, and Morant had a double-double (12 points, 11 assists) before complaining that the Grizzlies would get no respect even after the 25 points of frolics.
“It will always be something,” insisted Morant. “Even though we won that game, obviously they weren’t complete, so that’s going to be the thing now. If we were to lose, they were eager to say, ‘Yeah, since Ja said that. , they lost. ‘ It will be like this every time.”
With their 10th straight Christmas Day game on the schedule, the Warriors return home after a 1-5 trip that ended in thrashings of 38 and 30 points in New York and Brooklyn, respectively.
Golden State has played the final four games of the trip without Curry, who remains out with a slightly dislocated left shoulder and will miss at least two more weeks. They were also missing Wiggins (strained adductor) for the entire trip and key reserve Donte DiVincenzo (ill) for the past two losses, but both have been training on the Warriors’ three days off and are set to face the Grizzlies.
The Warriors beat their last two NBA Finals opponents — Boston at home and Toronto on the road — for the only wins in their last nine games, and Draymond Green thinks it’s time for him and his friends to start playing. take a disappointing 15. -18 start more seriously.
“You start going through these things and then you start believing it,” Green said. “Once you start believing it, it becomes who you are. The only way to break them is to be mentally strong.”
–Field-Level Media
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