After one-of-a-kind MLK Day win, how far can momentum carry the Memphis Grizzlies? | Giannotto

Ja Morant split through two Chicago Bulls and spun 360 degrees past a third defender in the air for a layup to put an exclamation point on another Memphis Grizzlies win Monday. It’s worth dissecting all the dynamics that made it possible because they help explain why this Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration game was an unprecedented one.

The play really began about two minutes earlier, when Morant felt Bulls forward Tony Bradley tried to trip him. “Ain’t no basketball play,” Morant said, and he said something to that effect in the moment to Bradley. The two became entangled, with Bradley grabbing hold of Morant’s jersey and refusing to let go.

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So in came Grizzlies center Steven Adams, who wrapped his arms around Morant’s nemesis and actually carried the 6-foot-10 Bradley down the court away from the fray.

“You age backwards. You feel like you’re 7,” teammate Jaren Jackson Jr. explained because he was on the receiving end of an Adams bear hug and carry as a rookie.

“When I looked up on the jumbotron and I saw dude’s feet hovering the ground and Steve-O carrying him like he was a kid,” guard Desmond Bane said, “I couldn’t help but laugh.”

Morant, meanwhile, couldn’t help but send the FedExForum crowd home with an awe-inspiring highlight in the 119-106 victory.

“Honestly, once I split the defense,” Morant said, “I wanted to rip the rim off after what happened.”

Thus was born the most memorable moment of a memorable MLK Day game that proved to be a showcase unlike any Memphis has put on before.

For as indelible as this game is in this city after 20 years, its enduring memories aren’t often related to the team the Grizzlies put on the floor in that particular season. Memphis is just 9-11 on MLK Day, even after Monday’s victory.

This is usually about everything but the game. It’s about King’s lasting impact and the work that still needs to be done to uphold and further his legacy. It’s about the civic leaders and athletes who are annually honored by the National Civil Rights Museum.

This year was no different, except never before have the Grizzlies been this good on MLK Day and then won the game, too. Only the 2014-15 team entered MLK Day with a better winning percentage than this group, and those Grizzlies lost to Dallas during this event.

Indeed, what Adams did to Bradley felt like a worthy metaphor given the spot Memphis currently resides after its franchise-record winning streak ended Friday. How far can this momentum carry them?

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The Grizzlies (31-15) have gone from a projected play-in team before the season began to a team competing for a top-six seed once the season did begin to the clear cut No. 4 seed in the Western Conference even after Morant got hurt to now jockeying with the Utah Jazz for the No. 3 seed. They’re the team everybody in the NBA wants to know more about.

So Monday, suffice to say, was a much better impression for a national audience than Friday’s blowout loss to Dallas. Shaquille O’Neal compared Morant to a young Kobe Bryant on the TNT pregame show. Charles Barkley, on the halftime show, sung the praises of Bane, and role players Brandon Clarke and John Konchar. Jackson had five blocks.

“This team, the second-youngest team in the NBA, is for real,” analyst Stan Van Gundy declared as the final seconds ticked off the clock.

So where will Memphis actually settle and what should it be striving to do?

The Grizzlies have won 22 of their past 27 games, a pace that seems unsustainable over the final 36 games in the regular season. Yet to put anything past them at this point would be shortsighted considering their history of overachieving and the fact that they’ve barely ever had their full nucleus of players at the same time this season.

They are now on a 55-win pace. They also have the second-easiest schedule remaining in the NBA, according to the Tankathon website. The franchise record for wins is 56.

That seems like a goal worth pursuing.

Let’s say the Grizzlies drop off a bit, though. Let’s say they win at a 60% clip the rest of the way. That still projects out to a 52-win season. That’s also the number of wins the Grizzlies were projected to finish with entering Monday, according to FiveThirtyEight.

It would, in Silver’s projections, give Memphis the fourth-best record in the Western Conference, the fourth-best record overall, and its first Southwest Division title. It would give the Grizzlies their first banner inside FedExForum. It could lift this particular MLK Day celebration game above all the rest.

You can reach Commercial Appeal columnist Mark Giannotto via email at mgiannotto@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter: @mgiannotto

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: After MLK Day win, how far can momentum carry the Memphis Grizzlies?