Recent Play Details

Memphis competed well in no-Ja mode is familiar after recording a 20-5 mark minus Morant during the regular season, as Taylor Jenkins has been able to get his troops to slow the pace, grind away in halfcourt, and lock down on the stop end to survive. That recipe, which limited foes to 8.6 points per 100 possessions below their usual average in games minus Super Ja, almost derailed Golden State in Game 4, when the Warriors were a ghastly 2-of-20 from beyond the arc and guilty of 11 turnovers in the first half. Though in retrospect the constellations were all lined up wrong for the Warriors on Monday, with top assistant Mike Brown earlier in the day accepting the Sacramento job for next season before finding out later in the afternoon that he would be the head coach at night because of Steve Kerr’s Covid.

Off of a 30-point win when Morant was available, Golden State was also guilty of overconfidence, perhaps further fueled by Ja’s absence. It led to the Warriors looking even worse on offense for much of the night than they did in the Game 2 loss, and if not for a few bombs by the underrated Otto Porter, Jr., no one else was hitting 3s for the Warriors until the 4th quarter when Steph Curry finally began to find his range.

Fast-forward to tonight, and the surrounding dynamics and psychologies might be a bit more settled. Kerr didn’t make the trip and won’t be on the bench for Game 5, and Brown’s interim role not a last-minute surprise. Also, with Morant apparently ruled out again, and after the Griz played so valiantly without him on Monday, the chance of the Warriors shortchanging Memphis as seemed to be the case on Monday would appear unlikely.

Golden State is also just two games removed from hitting 63% from the floor (Game 3), and can be expected to recover at least some of its shooting eye on Wednesday. Perhaps we see the Griz featuring more of rugged C Steven Adams, who took advantage of Golden State’s small-ball lineup in Game 4 to wind up a +13 in his 27 minutes on the floor, but the no-Morant factor was evident in crunch time when the Griz offense bogged down, and it was hardly a smooth-running machine for most of the evening anyway.

The Warriors have wrapped up plenty of series on the road in the championship era, and while the Griz have been able to perform admirably minus Morant this season, they likely again miss him badly late in the game, when Ja has often assumed the entire scoring burden. Play Golden State.