The Sacramento Kings will continue their road to ensuring themselves a spot in the NBA Play-In Tournament on Monday night against the Memphis Grizzlies. An otherwise difficult matchup is tilting slightly more towards the Kings after the most recent news coming out of Memphis.
The Grizzlies are also involved in a key battle for positioning. Memphis is a part of the incredibly close race for the second seed in the Western Conference at the moment. After climbing into that spot briefly over the last few days, they have since dipped back down to the fourth spot in the conference.
The Grizzlies managed to dismantle the Miami Heat in their last matchup, winning a dominant 125-91 ball game, despite missing one of their key stars. Ja Morant has been absent throughout the year a fair bit, missing several games of the 2024-25 NBA season due to knees, ankles, and other ailing body parts.
The Grizzlies officially announced Monday night's matchup against the Sacramento Kings will have a similar story. Morant will miss their upcoming contest versus Sacramento due to left hamstring soreness.
This comes as a tough blow for the Grizzlies and a crucial break for the Kings by extension.
Morant has been heating up of late for Memphis. During his last eight appearances for the Grizzlies, the star point guard has averaged 30.3 points, 7.6 assists, 4.0 rebounds, and 1.4 steals per game with shooting splits of 47-23-88. That 3-point percentage is obviously poor, but it has not stopped Morant from lighting up the scoring column in spite of it.
The Kings will dodge the assignment of trying to slow down the athletic point guard's offense and get an opportunity to focus on finding some consistency for themselves. Sacramento is 5-5 over their last 10 games after dropping four losses in a row leading up to this contest.
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This story was originally published March 17, 2025 at 1:00 PM.