It took two key wins over the Spurs and Warriors for the Memphis Grizzlies to even make the NBA playoff field in the Western Conference this year, yet they walked into Utah last night and beat the #1 team in the league, who had only lost 5 games at home during the entire regular season.
Memphis was spectacular in Sunday’s win over the Utah Jazz and granted that the Jazz were without Donovan Mitchell, that should not take away from some of the incredible performances the young Grizzlies’ players put together.
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Dillon Brooks continued to be hot, scoring 31 points on 13-26 shooting, Ja Morant added 26 points of his own and then Kyle Anderson also proved to be the “swiss-army-knife” of the Grizzlies, scoring 14 points, grabbing rebounds, fishing out 3 assists and recording 6 total steals, setting a new Grizzlies record for most steals in a playoff game.
Every time this young Grizzlies team takes the court, it looks like they are getting better and better and with them taking Game 1 in Utah, they now control all of the momentum in this series, even if the Jazz win Game 2.
Memphis may be the 8-seed, but they are going to be a tough team for the Jazz to beat, especially given the way they looked locked-in against the Jazz in one of the hardest arenas to play in given the energy Utah’s fans bring night-in and night-out.
So what can both the Grizzlies and the Jazz learn from Game 1? Let’s take a look at the three biggest takeaways from this huge Grizzlies’ victory on Sunday.
