MEMPHIS — Gary Payton II proved in training camp that he deserved a roster spot. It didn’t take long to establish that he would outplay his 15th spot on the roster. But never has his value to the Golden State Warriors been clearer than Tuesday night inside FedEx Forum, even in a 116-108 loss.
When Grizzlies star Ja Morant checked in with 7:40 to go, Payton leaped from his seat on the opposite bench and sprinted to the scorer’s table. That was his man. He needed to check in, too. Despite their best efforts to slow Morant, who earned “M-V-P” chants at the foul line, Golden State could only contain him momentarily.
“We did a lot of good things to get back in it after a really bad first half. But it was a great game,” coach Steve Kerr said afterward. “Two of the best teams in the league. They’re the hottest team in the league. We gave ourselves a chance but we didn’t play well enough to win.”
The Warriors were grasping for answers against Morant. Juan Toscano-Anderson started the game with the matchup, one of the toughest in all of basketball, and lasted one possession. It was Andrew Wiggins’ turn next, before the Warriors turned to a zone, which Morant quickly broke with a wide-open 3.
By the end of the opening period, Morant had 15. He finished with 29 and sealed the Grizzlies’ win — their 10th in a row overall and their fourth in the past five regular-season matchups with the Warriors — with a pair of baskets in the final minute. After the first-quarter explosion, though, the Warriors allowed just three Morant points for almost two full periods.
Payton, whose status was in doubt with a sprained ankle, didn’t sub in until the final seconds of the first quarter. He played 22 of the ensuing 36 minutes. With two field goals in the final minute, Morant doubled his total from the previous 35 minutes.
The key, Payton said: “Just touch him. Make him uncomfortable. He doesn’t like that. I think he doesn’t like me.”
With the shot clock winding down, after Payton had pulled the Warriors within a single possession with a dunk on the other end, Morant drove directly into Payton, bodied his way to the basket and extended the Grizzlies lead back to two scores, 113-108. Morant did it again on the next possession, this time drawing a foul on Wiggins and finishing the 3-point play.
“Ja’s one of the best athletes in the league and explosive and really hard to contain,” Kerr said. “Gary, I thought, came in and did as good a job as you can and tried to contain the penetration and stay in front of him.”
In an eight-point loss, Payton was one of only two Warriors with a positive plus-minus. Golden State bested Memphis by nine with him on the floor, only outdone by Klay Thompson’s plus-17 in his second game back from a two-season absence.
Thompson acted as a finisher in a couple ways. He spent as much time driving to the rim as he did behind the 3-point line. After subbing in for the final time with 4:37 left, Thompson attempted half of Golden State’s final 10 shots.
“That’s definitely an emphasis for me, to just be aggressive and try to finish over the defense,” said Thompson, who finished with 14 points on 5-of-13 shooting in 20 minutes. “It was fun tonight. … The adrenaline wasn’t as high because I wasn’t playing in front of our home crowd, but there were a lot of Warriors fans there. … Not happy with the result, but from an individual standpoint, I’m just grateful to get the first road game out of the way.”
When they say basketball is a game of runs, this is what they are talking about. Memphis rattled off scoring streaks of 14-0 and 18-3 and built a lead of 18 points, only for it all to fall apart by the middle of the third quarter, thanks to a 31-7 burst by Golden State on both sides of intermission. It came down to the fourth quarter — the final minute — but the Warriors’ spent their energy climbing out of their first-half hole.
“You exert so much energy just to get back in the game,” Curry said. “To sustain that run on the road is hard.”
Consider this four-game road trip an extended postseason preview. All four teams — Milwaukee, Chicago and Minnesota after Memphis — would be penciled into playoff spots if the season ended today.
The Grizzlies ended the Warriors’ season in the play-in round in May and were the only ones to beat Golden State for the first 12 games of this season. They’re the hottest team in the league, using 10 straight wins to improve to 29-14, within 2.5 games of the first-place Warriors (30-10).
“Every time we play them, we know they’re going to be in the hunt,” Payton said. “They’re a young, talented team and they’re hungry. They’re going to be in the mix a little later down the season.”
