Behind a second back-to-back significantly increase twofold by Ja Morant, the Memphis Grizzlies mobilized from 12 focuses down at halftime to snap a season-high five-game long string of failures with a 112-100 home win over the Indiana Pacers on Sunday night.
Morant had 27 focuses, 15 helps and 10 bounce back for his fifth triple-twofold. Jaren Jackson Jr. added 28 focuses and eight bounce back for the Grizzlies.
Ziaire Williams began instead of Desmond Bane (knee touchiness) and had seven focuses and two bounce back for the Grizzlies. Brandon Clarke recorded 13 focuses and two bounce back beginning instead of Steven Adams (hyper-extended knee).
Xavier Tillman (nine focuses, 11 bounce back), David Roddy (11 focuses) and Tyus Jones (10 focuses) came up huge off the seat for Memphis.
Bennedict Mathurin had a group high 27 focuses and eight bounce back for Indiana. Aaron Nesmith counted 16 focuses and five bounce back, while Myles Turner added 15 focuses and four sheets.
Andrew Nembhard (12 focuses) and Isaiah Jackson (13 focuses) were astounding off the seat for the Pacers. T.J. McConnell was held scoreless beginning instead of Tyrese Haliburton (knee injury, hyper-extended elbow), who missed his tenth consecutive game.
Indiana leapt out to a 32-23 first-quarter lead behind eight focuses from Nesmith and nine from Mathurin off the seat. Jackson contributed nine focuses in the initial quarter as Memphis shot 15.4 per cent (2 of 13) from the 3-point line.
The Pacers kept a 52-35 lead with 5:31 to go until halftime behind an intensely hot offence that was shooting 60% from the field (18 of 30), including 42.9 per cent (6 of 14) from behind the curve.
Yet, Memphis outscored the Pacers 15-10 until the end of the quarter and entered halftime following the guests 62-50. Morant and Jackson joined for 31 of the Grizzlies’ first-half focuses.
An 18-2 run, started by a back street oop from Morant to Jackson, attached the game at 70-all with 4:35 to go in the second from last quarter. Memphis carried an 80-79 lead with a quarter to play on a Roddy jumper with 34 seconds to go.
A deafening dunk by Morant covered a 7-0 mid-final quarter run and put the Grizzlies up 87-79 with barely 10 minutes to play.
Memphis outscored Indiana 32-21 in the fourth.
