It was a rough night’: Raptors fall to Grizzlies as Ja Morant puts on an

Ahead of the Raptors’ matchup against the Memphis Grizzlies, head coach Darko Rajaković outlined a “recipe for disaster” his team couldn’t fall to, like they had the last time they played Ja Morant, Jaren Jackson Jr. & Co.

The Raptors would need to play solid transition defence, avoid second-chance points and limit Memphis’ good shooting — all categories they’re among the best at in the league.

On Wednesday night, the Raptors couldn’t avoid a similar fate, as the Grizzles proved why they sit second in the Western Conference, picking up a 131-107 win behind a combined 58 points from Jackson Jr. and Morant, who looked as good as any player in the NBA.

a team, the Grizzles were too big, too strong and too fast, especially for a Raptors squad that was without three of its starters in R.J. Barrett, Immanuel Quickley and most importantly Jakob Poeltl. In turn, the outcome in Toronto gave Memphis its 10th win over the last 11 games for a 35-16 record, and knocked the Raptors down to 16-35 on the season.

was a rough night,” said Rajaković. “I thought that first half, we did a really good job. … But in the second half they came back, and they were really dominating the glass, and it was really hard to catch up with them in transition.”

It was in the second half that the Grizzlies made easy work of the Raptors, outscoring them 85-48. Throughout that stretch, they scored 24 of their 29 second chance points, while shooting 57 per cent from the field and 39% from three-point distance.

The Raptors did manage to hold them to a below-average 14 fast break points for the game. However, that didn’t stop the Grizzlies from their run-and-gun style of play. When they missed, they cleaned it back up, with the team finishing with 60 points in the paint, while winning the rebounding battle 62-34, as the Grizzlies also collected 25 offensive rebounds.

Ochai Agbaji, who was tied for a team-high 14 points (3-4 from distance) while coming off the bench, had a similar critique as Rajaković, saying their “general effort to make the next play, to give extra effort on the boards, and to go track down loose balls and win 50/50 balls; I think that’s where the game really got out of our hands.”