Ja Morant's status is 'in jeopardy.' So are Grizzlies' chances vs Lakers | Giannotto

The injury, right after Ja Morant tried to launch himself over Anthony Davis, looked bad. The scene in the locker room Sunday, right after the Memphis Grizzlies dropped Game 1 of their first-round series with the Los Angeles Lakers, looked worse.

Morant, the star point guard, wouldn’t use his right hand. Not to put his headphones on. Not to thumb through his cell phone. Not to get dressed. His socks proved particularly difficult, and he grimaced as he put his right arm through the sleeve of his sweatshirt.

He sounded dejected and defeated, in ways far more worrisome than the 128-112 loss that ended with him saddled to the FedExForum sideline in pain .

“My main focus was to be out there for my guys,” Morant said. “Another incident where that’s, pretty much, in jeopardy.”

Those two words – in jeopardy – will linger over the next few days, and perhaps over the rest of this series, because this team must prove its season isn’t suddenly in jeopardy, faster than anybody anticipated.

That might have been the case even if Morant hadn’t gotten hurt. That’s how much destructive Davis was inside. That’s how disturbing it was to see Rui Hachumura hit shot after shot. That’s how demoralizing it was to watch Austin Reaves dissect the Memphis defense in crunch time. That’s how unsettling all those second-chance and transition points the Lakers scored were to offset a fabulous performance from Jaren Jackson Jr.

The truth is LeBron James didn’t even have to play all that well for the Lakers to take home court advantage in this series away from the Grizzlies.

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But more than that is the mounting toll this is taking. A regular season that featured far more turmoil than anybody hoped for, especially as it pertains to Morant, has quickly become into a postseason in which these Grizzlies must navigate more obstacles than simply Davis and James if they hope to advance.

Can they win without Steven Adams and Brandon Clarke morphed into the same question that prevented them from advancing past the Golden State Warriors last season.

Can they win without Morant?

Can Morant gather himself enough – physically and mentally – to win when (if?) he comes back?

The answer is probably some version of this: It depends how long he’s out.

Morant sounded skeptical he’ll be ready by Game 2, though he didn’t rule it out. Morant said he’ll play Wednesday if he can be “somewhat” like himself. This will be, he added, about pain tolerance.

Coach Taylor Jenkins said X-rays on Morant’s hand were negative and that he could have used him in an emergency situation late. Jenkins had classified Morant’s hand injury pregame as a “contusion” for the first time before the game and noted Morant was “navigating some soreness.”

Morant, if you recall, initially hurt his hand when it got caught in Jae Crowder’s jersey during the penultimate game of the regular season against the Milwaukee Bucks.

But it was everything else, everything this injury conjured up inside of Morant, that somehow seemed more concerning than the physical part of it. Even on a day in which Milwaukee star Giannis Antetokounmpo (back contusion) and Miami Heat guard Tyler Herro (broken hand) also served as reminders of how quickly the narrative can change in the NBA playoffs.

It was as if Morant was reminded that the emotional wounds from the tumultuous past couple months hadn’t healed yet, much like his hand.

“I’m just pretty much numb to everything now. I’m not even surprised,” Morant said. “It’s one thing after another.”

It should be made clear that most of that statement was largely Morant’s own doing. Heck, even this setback was the result of a bad decision. Morant tried to jump over Davis like he tried to jump over him as a rookie. Just like he’s tried to jump over countless NBA players over the years.

It’s mostly been an endearing quality of his because he’s mostly avoided catastrophe in the past, despite some crash landings that left everyone cringing in fear over the potential for injury. This time, he didn’t. He got called for a charge and then went charging toward the locker room, never to re-enter the game again Sunday.

But for the purposes of these playoffs, for the purposes of this team, the fact that he feels such a mental burden feels inhibiting to his potential return.

Maybe that explains the postgame rhetoric from his teammates. Dillon Brooks said seeing Morant injured “hits me in the heart” but insisted "we'll see what happens in a couple days. Bane called Morant “tough as nails” and refused to rule out a return in time for Game 2. Jackson went as far as to insinuate this was all just for the drama.

“That’s always just stuff he’s telling you all,” Jackson said of Morant. “At the end of the day, he feels fine. We push through anything. He’s just going to tell y’all something good.”

Hopefully, he's right. Only Morant really knows that, though.

So he sat there at his locker stall, wearing the headphones he could only put on with his left land, and looked up at the ceiling. He was in the midst of meditation, he confirmed later, attempting to come to grips with what just happened and what comes next.

You can reach Commercial Appeal columnist Mark Giannotto via email at mgiannotto@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter: @mgiannotto

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Can Grizzlies beat Anthony Davis, LeBron James without Ja Morant?