Ja Morant smiling despite being down near 60 to Thunder has fans fuming: “He said he’s fine in the west!”

Superstar Ja Morant and his Memphis Grizzlies start their first-round playoff series against the league leading Oklahoma City Thunder.

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The Memphis Grizzlies ensured they have a place in the 2025 NBA Playoffs after defeating the Dallas Mavericks in the play-in final. That meant Ja Morant and his teammates would not face the league-leading Oklahoma City Thunder in the 1st round.

Anyone facing the league leaders knows it will not be easy. The Thunder are tops in both offense and defense. Therefore, to win a game against them, opponents must be on their toes throughout the forty-eight minutes of each battle.

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The Grizzlies must have watched how other teams have defeated the Thunder. They tried to implement that plan by stifling superstar Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. The plan worked and the MVP frontrunner was not firing on all cylinders.

But they possibly forgot that the Thunder have stud players across their roster. The others blitzed the Grizzlies and helped take a thirty-two point lead at the half. Many expected the Memphis Grizzlies to come out of the second half with a response.

They tried but could not do anything as the Oklahoma City Thunder ensured their gas pedal was on the floor. They continued to increase the deficit and in the fourth quarter, were up by nearly fifty-five points at one point.

But interim head coach Tuomas Iisalo did not wait that long. He pulled his starters after his team were down fifty points at the end of the third. Then on, the likes of Ja Morant, Desmond Bane, Jaren Jackson Jr. and others watched the league-leaders win the game with a 51-point margin.

Fans fume as Ja Morant smiles sitting on the bench down near 60 points

This loss was seven points shy of the record and was the largest Game 1 win in NBA playoff history. Basketball fans know the Memphis Grizzlies will be embarrassed by this humiliation. But what angered them even more than the point differential was Ja Morant’s attitude.

The superstar was seen smiling while he was sitting on the bench. Fans believe this shows he was not locked into this game. Rather, that smile led them to believe the player did not care about the humiliation. They took to social media to vent out their frustrations. Check out examples of those comments below.

Ja Morant might not have had any ill feelings about that and was probably just taking in the funnier side of things. Or, he might have been trying to get the humiliation out of his head and enjoy the rest of the game.

But fans believe that smile shows he lacks the seriousness needed to succeed at the highest level. When teams face such humiliation, they should be seething in anger, instead of having their teeth out and enjoying some jokes.

Morant disregards 51-point loss while issuing warning

That embarrassment should be a wake-up call for the Memphis Grizzlies. They know they are facing a well-rested Oklahoma City Thunder, who have made life difficult for all the teams they have faced. But Ja Morant believes this humiliation is a one-off incident.

We’ll never play that bad again.

Ja Morant said

The superstar’s words suggest he and his teammates will get back on track in the next game. Tonight, the Grizzlies shot abysmally. Morant was likely referring to that, indicating they will work to get back into form ahead of game two.

He also told reporters that if they win game two, it will even the series. Thus, he is trying to suggest that this 51-point loss will not impact the end result. Any playoff series is defined by how many games a team wins. That means he just shrugged this loss under the rug and will look to bounce back next game.