Desmond Bane had 23 points, Jaren Jackson Jr. added 21 and six blocks, and Memphis won for the 12th time in 13 road games.
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LA Lakers’ four-game winning streak comes to an end as Memphis Grizzlies get the better of them in the NBA fixture at Crypto.com Arena on Sunday. Meanwhile en route to the 127-119 victory, the Grizzlies extended their winning streak to nine games. Desmond Bane had 23 points, Jaren Jackson Jr. added 21 and six blocks, and Memphis won for the 12th time in 13 road games. Grizzlies got its highest lead of the game (29) in the fourth quarter after putting the game out of the Lakers’ reach in the third.
walk in your trap, take over your trap. 9 of em. pic.twitter.com/oPV1hrHQX1
— Memphis Grizzlies (@memgrizz) January 10, 2022
Morant’s swat came in the first quarter, when he soared from behind Avery Bradley as he tried for a layup, caught the ball with both hands and smacked it off the glass about halfway up the backboard.
”I just got back and made an incredible play,” Morant said. ”I was just trying to gather the ball. Most of the time on a break like that, if you block it, they might have a player trailing to get the ball and lay it up. It worked out perfect for me. Now I’m probably all over the internet for it.’
His teammates were understandably impressed.
”That’s probably the best block I’ve ever seen live. Probably the best block I’ve ever seen, period,” Jackson said. ”That was crazy. I knew he was going to do it, too, because he always loads up right before.
LeBron James scored 23 of his 35 points in the first half. He converted14 of 19 shots and added seven assists. He passed Oscar Robertson (9,887 assists) for seventh most assists in NBA history.
After ending the first quarter even on the scoreboard, Grizzlies took a commanding 13-point lead into the half. The domination continued in the third period, with Desmond Bane and Kyle Anderson making up for Morant’s shooting woes to take a commanding lead at the start of the fourth quarter. Mid-way through the final stanza, head coach Frank Vogel sat his starters to let the bench get some game time.
”Memphis played great. They’re one of the hottest teams in the league,” Lakers coach Frank Vogel said. ”We had trouble getting back in transition. We let a lot of misses at the basket affect our defensive focus. When we weren’t scoring, we lost focus of what we were supposed to be doing on the defensive side. That can’t happen. That was a big reason they built a big league.”
During the nine-game winning streak, the Grizzlies have had three back-to-backs.
”It’s obviously exciting,” said Brad Jones, who was the acting coach Sunday. ”I don’t think we’d talked to our players about that at all. They told us before we went in the locker room. We told them we made history tonight. They were pretty excited about that.”
This was win No. 100 for Memphis coach Taylor Jenkins, although he was in quarantine back in his Los Angeles hotel room. The 37-year-old missed his second straight game because of COVID-19 protocols.
Taylor was part of pre-game planning with the team via Zoom, and the Grizzlies celebrated with him postgame via video conference also.
