It brings me truly no pleasure to say the Grizzlies are teetering on the edge between lovable challenger and incredibly annoying. And they are increasingly tipping toward the wrong direction.
I’ve had an appreciation for the Grizz going back to the Grit and Grind days of Mike Conley, Marc Gasol, Zach Randolph and Tony Allen. The current group has been a worthy successor to those franchise legends. Their brash mentality, rugged play and the acrobatics of Ja Morant have generally been very entertaining. I even welcome their trash talk, despite the team’s relatively thin playoff résumé. But this squad constantly finds itself drowning in self-inflicted, nonbasketball nonsense, and it’s become a little exhausting to watch.
That nonsense reached its nadir Thursday night when Dillon Brooks swung his arm into Donovan Mitchell’s groin in the Grizzlies’ loss to the Cavaliers. There’s just really no excuse for this type of play, and Brooks didn’t exactly offer much explanation after the game. I’m even a fan of Brooks for the most part, though his style of play can best be described as “that one friend who is on another level than everyone else at the bachelor party” energy and his shot selection borders on self-sabotage. Taking a cheap shot at Mitchell was embarrassing. If you’re really this big, bad, tough basketball team, then prove it within the confines of the game. Hitting guys in the nuts doesn’t prove anything about how gritty the Grizz are. It’s unserious. Is that going to be the strategy when an opposing player starts going off in the postseason? See whether Brooks can get them ejected?
