Ja Morant continues ascension with 52-point barrage
Is Ja Morant in the MVP conversation?
It's a question that Morant is forcing the NBA world to ask itself, it seems, night after night — and he kept the pressure on with his performance Monday night.
Morant scored a career-high 52 points in Memphis' 118-105 win over San Antonio, connecting on 22 of his 30 shot attempts (73.3%) in 34 minutes. It was the first 50-plus-point performance in Grizzlies history.
Monday's performance came two days after he scored a previous career-high 46 in a 116-110 win at Chicago on Saturday … which came 10 days after he tied his previous career-high of 44 against the Trail Blazers on Feb. 16.
Said Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich of Morant after Monday's game: "I just wish I had a camera so I could get a few pictures. It was pretty special. He was special."
Sheesh.
In addition, what has proven special about Morant is the manner in which he puts the ball in the hoop.
On Monday, he went full Derek Fisher when he caught this full-court pass from Steven Adams in the air and scored with 0.4 on the clock.
Morant also put the hammer down on Spurs center Jakob Poeltl.
There was also this 3-ball from nearly halfcourt.
What can't the 22-year-old wunderkind do?
And it's because of those dynamic qualities that on Tuesday, Ric Bucher said Morant is well on his way to being one of the faces of the NBA.
As of Tuesday, Morant is averaging 27.6 points, 6.6 assists and 5.9 rebounds, and slots fifth in the NBA in PER (25.62), well ahead of names such as Steph Curry, James Harden and Luka Doncic.
Arguably the most impressive part of Morant's season is the fact that the Grizzlies are winning — big.
Memphis is third in the West standings at 43-20, just a single game behind the second-place Golden State Warriors.
Predictably, Twitter went crazy after Morant's latest scoring barrage. Here's how the NBA world reacted:
