Ja Morant Sends 9-Word Message on NBA's Unexpected MVP Decision
Ja Morant and the Memphis Grizzlies were the second seed in the Western Conference on Feb. 27, but they couldn't produce when it counted most.
The club slid all the way to the eighth seed by the end of the regular season and fired head coach Taylor Jenkins in the process. It then lost to the Golden State Warriors in the first Play-In game before winning the do-or-die second Play-In match vs. the Dallas Mavericks.
Advertisement
However, the glory was short lived, as they got swept by the Oklahoma City Thunder in the first round. The latter team is now in a second-round bout with the Denver Nuggets, who they'll host for Game 7 on Sunday.
The series features the top two MVP candidates in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Nikola Jokic.
Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic (15), Nuggets guard Christian Braun (0), and Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (2).Alonzo Adams-Imagn Images
The NBA still hasn't announced the winner yet, and Morant sounded off about the unusual delay on social media.
'They got to see who wins the series first,' the Murray State alum said.
He was responding to Minnesota Timberwolves guard Bones Hyland, who asked 'Anybody else wondered why they haven't announced MVP yet?'
The NBA taking this long to announce MVP has been an unexpected decision among fans, and clearly players as well. Last season, Jokic was announced as league MVP on May 8, 2024 (via NBA).
Advertisement
Gilgeous-Alexander won the scoring title this season with 32.7 points per game on 51.9 percent shooting (37.5 percent 3 PT). On the other hand, Jokic was third with 29.6 points, ninth with a 57.6 percent field goal clip, third with 12.7 rebounds, and second with 10.2 assists. The 2014 second-round pick also shot 41.7 percent from deep.
Whoever wins Game 7 will have homecourt advantage over the Timberwolves in the Western Conference Finals.
Related: Scotty Pippen Jr. Facing Backlash for Ja Morant Message After Grizzlies' Loss
Related: Grizzlies Announce Ja Morant News Before Lakers Game
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Washington Post
36 minutes ago
- Washington Post
Panthers can move to the verge of winning the Stanley Cup again if they beat the Oilers in Game 4
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Leading the Stanley Cup Final 2-1, the Florida Panthers can move to the verge of a second consecutive championship if they beat the Edmonton Oilers in Game 4 at home Thursday night. The Panthers were upbeat and relaxed at their final full practice before the potential swing game, with players downplaying the gravity of the situation.
Fox News
an hour ago
- Fox News
Larry Nassar victims' lead attorney criticizes USA Gymnastics trans athlete policy handling
The Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal became a sudden talking point amid the backlash against Simone Biles for defending trans athletes in women's sports. Some critics, including Biles' target in her social media rant Riley Gaines, pointed to the abuse perpetrated by Nassar while criticizing Biles' stance on trans athletes. Then on Wednesday, a USA Gymnastics spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the organization's transgender eligibility policy and resources pages were deleted from its website in May, to "assess compliance with the current legal landscape." The lead attorney for the U.S. women's gymnasts who were affected by Nassar, John Manly, weighed in on the comparisons between the Nassar abuse and biological male inclusion in women's sports. "Larry Nassar was sexually assaulting children, that's fundamentally different," Manly told Fox News Digital. However, Manly believes that the leadership at USA Gymnastics and its method of deciding to allow trans athletes in the women's category is the same type of leadership method that allowed the Nassar scandal to occur. "I think that's precisely right," Manly said. "[Female gymnasts] are in that position with that trans athlete in the locker room because of the organizations that create policies. … In that same token, Larry Nassar was created and allowed to flourish because they didn't have policies preventing precisely what he was doing. He was treating little girls in their hotels rooms alone on their beds, during the Olympics, there's no policy against it." Manly added, "Athletes are not first in this sytem, they're not. Money and medals are, and the people who run it are first." President Donald Trump signed his "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports" executive order in February, but the order only applies to institutions that receive federal funding, while USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) are private entities. As a lawyer, Manly questioned the validity of the organization's recent excuse of "compliance with the current legal landscape" for deleting the policy pages. "That's a bunch of nonsense," Manly said. "That's corporate speak for 'we're concerned that the political winds have shifted and people are taking a dim view of the policy' and they don't want to become Bud Light. "The reason Larry Nassar happened, one, is because they didn't put athletes first, and two, because they slithered around and tried to cover it up, and [it's] the same thing here. Make a decision, stand out and defend it." Still, unlike Nassar, Manly believes that blame does not always fall on the trans athletes themselves, especially those who are underage. Manly, who has known Biles for several years, believes the gymnast was trying to make a similar point in her recent controversial social media rant, but it was "misunderstood." "I think it's a misunderstanding. I think what I suspect what Simone was trying to say is 'we shouldn't blame children, child athletes, for competing when these organizations allow it. But I haven't spoken to her about it… I respect Riley Gaines and obviously I respect and love Simone, and I wish it hadn't happen, but I can't speak to that," Manly said. In December 2021, Manly helped Biles and fellow U.S. women's gymnasts Aly Raisman, McKayla Maroney and Maggie Nichol secure a $380 million settlement from USA Gymnastics and USOPC over the Nassar abuse. Since then, the attorney has followed the issue's impact on the legal landscape, with an eye on Gaines' lawsuit against the NCAA for the inclusion of biological male Lia "Will" Thomas in the 2022 NCAA women's swimming championship. "I think it's really important," Manly said of Gaines' lawsuit's impact on women's sports history. "How that plays out is going to determine whether women's sports is going to continue as we know it or if it's going to change… the fact that the NCAA hasn't just owned up to it and come to a settlement with her is shocking to me." Manly says he would consider filing his own lawsuit against the USOPC if any American Olympians came to him with a legitimate case. "I'd file them to protect women, to protect female athletes, but I shouldn't have to file those cases, what should happen is the USOPC should step in and say 'were going to protect our athletes and we're going to have clarity," he said. While Manly hopes that the policies will be clear and allow fair competition in time for the Los Angeles Olympics, he says he has "no confidence," the policies will be at that point in summer 2028 if the current USOPC leadership remains in power. "I don't have any hope for anything with this board," he said. Follow Fox News Digital's sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.
Indianapolis Star
an hour ago
- Indianapolis Star
How Pacers' Tyrese Haliburton shut out the noise and found a way to beat the Thunder
INDIANAPOLIS -- Pacers point guard Tyrese Haliburton knows what to expect from the online and television discourse every time he has a performance like he had in Game 2 of the NBA Finals -- when his scoring and field goal attempt numbers take a dip and he doesn't make the impact he wants to. During the regular season it's more of a local phenomenon, but once the postseason hit, the discourse became more national with every round. How is it possible someone capable of so much magic in a historically improbable late-game comeback such as Game 1 of this series when Haliburton hit a game-winning jumper with 0.3 seconds to go to be so quiet in games the Pacers lose. They say he's not aggressive enough or too inconsistent to be considered a superstar and wonder why the 2023-24 NBA assist leader hasn't figured out that he should just shoot more. The narratives are overly simplistic, but Haliburton knows at this point there's only so much he can do to change that. He admits that he is "chronically online" and has a better sense of the NBA and how it's covered than just about any other active player, but at this stage he's actively trying to avoid the social media that he usually drinks in. "I think the commentary is always going to be what it is, you know?" Haliburton said. "Most of the time, the talking heads on the major platforms, I couldn't care less. Honestly, like what do they really know about basketball?" Re-live the Pacers unbelievable run to the NBA Finals in IndyStar's commemorative book Haliburton is aware there's a correlation between his scoring and the Pacers' success. He averaged 21.2 points in wins in the regular season on 14.6 field goal attempts per game and 14.3 points per game on 12.4 field goal attempts in defeats. But he views his scoring less as a cause of the Pacers' wins and more of a connected effect. He scores more and the Pacers win more when he's getting two feet in the paint, and that happens when he's orchestrating the Pacers whirling, ball-movement oriented offense the way that he wants to. The wispy 6-5, 185-pounder who was raised on Magic Johnson highlight videos is neither physically nor mentally built to doggedly drive into the lane to pile up shots and draw fouls in an effort to score 30 or 40 points every night. But when he gets the offense spinning, he can put up big scoring and assist numbers by letting the game come to him. Usually when he doesn't score much, that's a sign of a deeper dysfunction in execution, and Haliburton looks to find that issue rather than focus on his field goal attempts. And in Game 3 he made the adjustments he needed to make. After scoring 17 points in Sunday's Game 2 with 12 of them coming in the fourth quarter after the Pacers had faded too far to come back, Haliburton dazzled in Game 3 with 22 points, 11 assists and nine rebounds to help lead the Pacers to a 116-107 win over the Thunder on Wednesday in their first NBA Finals home game since 2000. Twenty-five years to the day after the Pacers' Game 3 win over the Lakers in the 2000 Finals, they took a 2-1 lead in this NBA Finals with Game 4 coming up Friday at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. Haliburton didn't view the performance as a triumph of aggression or will but of an adjustment in mindset and strategy against a Thunder defense that he told ESPN he considers to be the best he's played against. In Game 2, Haliburton believed he allowed the Pacers' system of randomized movement to become too predictable and too predicated on high ball screens -- usually Haliburton's bread and butter, but an action that plays right into the hands of a swarming Thunder defense. In Game 3, he mixed up actions well enough to create space which was beneficial not only for him but everyone else on the Pacers' roster. Their 116 points were the most they've scored in a game this series, they shot a series-best 51.8% from the floor and scored 50 points in the paint after scoring just 34 in each of the first two games. "We did a great job of just playing off the pitch, off handoffs, screening, all those things," Haliburton said. "I thought we did a great job of -- this is a defense that you can't consistently give them the same look. If you try to hold the ball and call for screens, they crawl into you and pack the paint. It's not easy. It's really tough. That's why they are such a historical defense. You just have to continue to give them different looks as much as you can. I thought we did a great job of just playing and continuing to play random basketball. Against a team like this, there's not really play calls. You've just got to play." That's what Haliburton did and he let his own offense come to him as the game went along. He didn't take a shot for nearly six minutes to start the game and he missed his first field goal attempt, a 20-foot step-back pull-up jumper with 6:10 to go in the first quarter. But he followed that by driving past Thunder All-NBA second team defender Jalen Williams to the right side of the foul line and hitting a 16-foot floater over Thunder center Isaiah Hartenstein with 5:10 to play in the first quarter. Then he hit his first 3-pointer in first-team All-Defensive Team pick Luguentz Dort's face with 3:00 to go in the period and suddenly he had his rhythm established early. Haliburton put faith in his floater -- a weapon he's admittedly sometimes too reluctant to use -- hitting three mid-range shots in that fashion over top of charging big men. He scored two buckets at the rim -- one an impressive finish on a drive through contact and the other an easy two-handed fast-break dunk off a steal. He was 4 of 8 from 3-point range, hitting his most 3s since he made five in his 32-point, 15-assist, 12-rebound triple-double in the Pacers' win over the Knicks in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals. But he didn't just look for his own offense. He helped get fellow All-Star Pascal Siakam started early as Siakam scored the Pacers first six points en route to a 21-point night. Haliburton still got center Myles Turner involved with pick-and-roll and pick and pop actions even though the Pacers tried not to live off those as much. He made plays "off the pitch," using give-and-go actions with bigs operating near the top of the key with their back to the basket catching his passes and tossing them right back to him and that got Haliburton downhill momentum that he could use to either go to the rim or pass and it helped keep the Thunder from loading up their defense quickly. The Pacers managed 41 field goal attempts in the paint after taking just 27 in Game 2. "Terrific," Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said of Haliburton. "Look, every game you're going to have to make adjustments against this defense. There's just going to be different looks. You're going to have different high-level defenders on you. You're going to see some different coverage stuff. It's going to be constantly changing. So I thought his approach tonight was exactly what it needed to be, a combination of spatial awareness and aggression, and you know, a real good feel for aggression to score along with getting his teammates involved at the right times." Haliburton moves forward knowing that solving the Thunder defense for a game isn't the same as solving it for a series. Oklahoma City led the NBA in defensive rating and allowed the fewest paint points, and they'll find more ways to keep the ball away from the rim in Game 4. He also knows that there will be games when he's successfully bottled up or scores fewer points because he's more focused on creating for others. "I think there's going to be ebbs and flows," Haliburton said. "I'm never going to be, you know, super great and shoot so many shots every game consistently. There's going to be games where I don't and I've got to be able to find the right balance between the two. But I mean, I think experience is the best way I can learn from it. So seeing where I can be better is important through the first two games and just trying to be better today. You know, taking what the defense gives me, trying to play the right way and watch film and see where I can get better and be ready to go for Game 4." Haliburton has a lot of voices telling him he needs to shoot more. His personal trainer, Drew Hanlen, is particularly explicit about it, and Haliburton acknowledges that he sees plenty of examples of himself passing out on shots he should take and make in the course of a game. But part of that is a product of focus on making the textbook right play and keeping in mind the importance of involving his teammates. In turn, they trust his judgment. "Ty's got to do him," Siakam said. "That's what he's got to do, he's got to be himself every time he's out on the floor. He can impact the game in so many ways. So I'm really not worried about his scoring. I just know that he's going to make the right play. But when he's intentional about doing that every single play, I know something good is going to happen. So as long as he keeps doing that, we're going to be all right."
