Grizzlies’ Morant (knee) returns vs. Pelicans
Memphis Grizzlies point guard Ja Morant made his return to the court three weeks after injuring his right knee as the Grizzlies routed the New Orleans Pelicans 141-114 on Saturday night.
Morant, who had been listed as out with a sore knee since March 18, had 21 points and nine assists in his return.
The Grizzlies have thrived with Morant on and off the court this season and are 20-4 in games in which he hasn’t played, although they have dropped their last two.
Memphis has already secured the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference playoffs.
Memphis coach Taylor Jenkins said the team will monitor Morant’s minutes throughout the game.
“He may not play his playoff minutes, but we’ll be smart,” Jenkins said when asked about any minutes restriction on Morant.
“Obviously, we want to get him as good a run as possible with the group that he’s going to be playing with, but he’s been off for a few weeks. We want to be intentional about not throwing him right into the high-volume minutes right off the bat.”
Jenkins mentioned chemistry heading into the playoffs as one reason for bringing Morant back before the postseason starts next week.
“A lot of it’s just getting back on the floor, playing competitive basketball after a pretty long layoff,” Jenkins said. “Those are all the factors that kind of go into our head, and if our medical team says this is good and he’s feeling good about it, I think that that’s a confidence boost going into the playoffs having been off for a couple of weeks here.”