At the close of the first half of the Memphis Grizzlies’ 135-119 victory over the Brooklyn Nets on Friday, Ja Morant knocked down a mid-range jumper as time expired and proceeded to saunter his way back toward the Nets’ bench staring right at Brooklyn coach Jordi Fernandez as he passed by.
Who knows why Morant decided to direct his celebration so clearly at Fernandez, but it was blatant and unnecessary. Fast forward to the end of the game, and Morant is still taunting Fernandez and Brooklyn’s bench and Dennis Schroder, for one, was not pleased.
Let’s take it one taunt at a time. First, here’s Morant’s shot to end the first half and his subsequent stare down of Fernandez.
Now here’s Morant coming out of the game at the end of the fourth quarter and continuing to yap at the Nets’ bench and Fernandez. You can see Fernandez and Grizzlies coach Taylor Jenkins come together, then Schroder go at Jenkins and pretty clearly say something that the Memphis coach didn’t appreciate. That ratcheted up the tension, and technical fouls were assessed to both sides.
You can see (and hear!) how heated Jenkins was after whatever magic words Schroder said to him, but it was Jenkins’ player who started this deal. Let’s remember that.
Fernandez, for his part, was a bit more diplomatic.
“I will never speak to other [teams’] players, and I don’t want other [teams’] players to speak to me,” Fernandez said after the game. “If they want to be nice, obviously it’s part of the game [to interact]. If not, I don’t want any interaction. I think it’s disrespectful. It’s not part of the game. That’s what we are projecting to everybody else. Playing with respect, respect for the game, whether you are a superstar or whoever you are. That’s what I want my players to do, what I do myself. I cannot control others.”
That’s a classy response from Fernandez — who also had the respect to denounce Schroder’s actions and words toward Jenkins — after what was some pretty classless behavior from Morant, who, for his part, took no accountability for his part in the dustup. In fact, Morant happily stated that he actually achieved his goal of getting under Brooklyn’s skin at the end of the game by saying, “I was trolling, just to get them riled up, and I did.”
As for the stare down of Fernandez at the end of the first half, Morant said, “that’s energy, man. .. I didn’t say nothing crazy. If you look at the video, I was just saying ‘yeah.’ If ‘yeah’ is disrespectful or makes you feel some type of way, then hey, so be it.”
That’s a copout by Morant. Yes, it’s natural to be pumped after hitting a buzzer-beater, but you can direct your energy and celebration a lot of ways without staring a hole through the opposing coach as you pass by him. We all, or most of us, like trash talk and appreciate as fans seeing energy from the players. This is just unnecessary and a bad look for Morant, even if he doesn’t realize it.
