Memphis Grizzlies guard Ja Morant threw down the best dunk of the NBA season on Saturday night against the Indiana Pacers. He cut through the Pacers defense, drove to the rim, left toward Indiana center Jalen Smith, and threw down a monster jam.
“When you play in this league for a long time, you see some special things from special players. That was one of them,” Pacers point guard TJ McConnell said of the play after the game.
The dunk took place in the third quarter of last night’s battle. Morant had several highlights throughout the night, including a ridiculous block just a few minutes earlier. But this dunk was the most impressive play of the bunch.
Morant said it was his best dunk ever after the game due to its difficulty. “Yeah, easy,” he said when asked if it was his best slam. “It’s what everybody’s been waiting for.”
He wasn’t sure what to do at the moment. He looked at the Grizzlies bench, then yelled and eventually retreated to play defense. He said that Memphis head coach Taylor Jenkins spoke with him a few possessions later about getting back on defense.
“I just froze, I was in the moment,” Morant recalled of the moment after the dunk. Through a smile, he said that his shoes, the Ja 1s, helped him complete the play.
Smith tried to make a defensive play, which is always noble even if it puts him on the wrong end of a highlight. He did everything he could to try to stop the dunk, and he is averaging a career high in blocks per game (0.9) and block percentage (4.0%) this season.
But Morant got him on this play. “I mean, if he wasn’t there, I probably would have dunked it way harder. Obviously, he’s their rim protector. [He] took a chance,” Morant said.
“He just dunked on me, that’s all it was. Being a shot blocker, you’re going to get dunked on every once in a while. Ain’t no surprise,” Smith noted of the play.
Smith did have two other blocks on the night, including one on a Ziaire Williams dunk attempt less than 100 seconds after Morant’s highlight. He kept trying to protect the rim all night.
“He’s an athletic dunker, you’re going to get caught once in a while,” Smith said of Morant.
You can listen to Ja Morant discuss the dunk below.
The Grizzlies beat the Pacers 130-112.
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