While Golden State produced one of its iconic offensive stretches in Friday’s 110–96 series clinching win against Memphis, Dillon Brooks provided the perfect perspective on where the Grizzlies sit among the league’s best teams going forward.
As Memphis fought resiliently for nearly the entire game without star point guard Ja Morant, who suffered a bone bruise after Game 3 in the series, Brooks said the Grizzlies have raised the bar and the Warriors took notice.
“We’re young and they’re getting old,” Brooks said. “They know that we are going to come every single year.”
Brooks, who finished with 30 points and four rebounds in the Grizzlies’ loss, was an integral part of a young Memphis team that earned the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference playoffs after posting 56 wins this season, their most in a single season since the 2012 to ’13 campaign.
The Grizzlies fell short of competing for a championship this season. However, Brooks believes last year’s play-in game experience and this year’s back-and-forth battle with the Warriors provides Memphis with valuable learning lessons. “This is good motivation,” Brooks said. “Going against them was amazing, it is big for us… We’re going to take this throughout the summer and be ready to do it again.”
However, the 26-year-old did not shy away from the idea that if Morant played that the outcome of Friday’s game might have been different. “Ja is one of the best point guards in this league—you guys know that—obviously it would change, but we made do with what we had,” Brooks said.
