An elephant and a bear walk into a room during a playoff series, and the elephant is named Ja Morant and the bear is named Lebron James. How does this play out?
It’s playing out right before our eyes. But Memphis fans are not acknowledging what they are clearly seeing and have been seeing for a while.
Let’s start with the elephant in the room: Ja Morant. Ja put up an amazing line of 45 points, 9 rebounds, and 13 assists a stellar double-double and damn near an amazing triple-double. Yet, the Grizzlies still lost the game. This means that the Grizzlies are 1-2 during this year’s playoffs with Ja, and they’re 37-24 all-time without him, though this disparity has become somewhat more pronounced as of late.
So, let’s address this elephant in the room. On the one hand, it’d be asinine to suggest that the Grizzlies are better without Ja Morant. On the other hand, every objective statistic and metric clearly reflects that—somehow—they are better without him.
What does this mean? Obviously, the Grizzlies aren’t going to bench Morant, nor are they interested in unloading him in the offseason. That would be bananas. But we’re definitely seeing a disconnect between Morant’s style of play, the offensive dynamic, and general coaching. If we’re going to succeed for the rest of the playoffs, this will need be resolved immediately.
If it is not resolved and we have an early exit, this will need to be the primary point of emphasis in preparation for 2023-24.
Onto the bear in the room: Lebron James. Yes, Dillon Brooks likes to poke the bear. What happened was not Brooks feeding honey to the bear; it was Brooks being eaten by the bear. All of Dillon’s trash talking prior to the game resulted in one of the worst offensive starts to any Grizzlies game ever; one of Dillon’s worst offensive and defensive performances ever; and an early exit at the beginning of the second half because Dillon couldn’t keep his hands away from Lebron’s junk.
We all support Dillon, but he needs to spend less time talking and more time performing. Frankly, we’re not even sure the trash-talking is effective—in fact, it could very easily be counter-effective. So, we politely ask Brooks to leave the bear alone—except when they’re on the court. But beware the genitals, Dillon!
Aside from that, we clearly need to pick up Game 4. If we do so, we’re still calling it 4-2 Grizzlies.
