SAN FRANCISCO — The Memphis Grizzlies will be without star point guard Ja Morant Monday night in Game 4 due to a right knee injury.
Grizzlies head coach Taylor Jenkins said the team will take Morant’s knee issue day by day. The point guard underwent an MRI but Jenkins would not reveal the results. The team has not specified exactly what Morant’s knee injury is other than right knee soreness.
“Further evaluation,” Jenkins said before Game 4. “Obviously, we are going to continue to work with our doctors to try to figure out what is going on [with the knee].”
Jenkins said on Sunday that the Grizzlies and Morant felt he suffered the injury on a play in the fourth quarter when Jordan Poole grabbed his knee while trapping the point guard and going for the basketball. Jenkins said Poole yanked Morant’s knee and that was the play that triggered the injury.
Morant was favoring his leg slightly when walking from the team bus to the morning shootaround at the Chase Center. He didn’t do much at shootaround while wearing slides.
Morant will only have one more day to improve before the Grizzlies play Game 5 in Memphis on Wednesday.
The Grizzlies went 20-5 without Morant this season but had been outscored by 32 points in the 29 minutes they played without Morant on the floor in the first three games of this series.
Morant has averaged 38.3 points, 8.3 assists and 6.7 rebounds in this second-round series.
“I probably found out more about that today,” power forward Jaren Jackson Jr. said about Morant’s doubtful status entering Game 4 after the morning shootaround. “It’s definitely sad. It’s my boy so you don’t want to see that. We are there for him. We know what he expects of us, just resiliency, that is what we expect of each other. So we are going to show that tonight and go out and compete like we know.”