'We don't run from smoke': Ja Morant says Golden State and Memphis Grizzlies are not rivals

Shortly after the Golden State Warriors won their fourth championship in eight years, Klay Thompson took the podium and expressed his unhappiness with Jaren Jackson Jr. tweeting ‘Strength in numbers” after a Memphis Grizzlies win in March.

Thompson’s subtle jab led to a Twitter exchange between Ja Morant and Draymond Green. The two stars traded tweets after Morant said that the Grizzlies “got a lot of real estate” after Thompson’s comments. Green didn’t take long to respond, and the sequence became late-night entertainment. 

“That’s real estate, like I said,” Morant said in an interview with The Commercial Appeal. “Pretty much something we not worried about. Obviously they won a championship, congrats to them. But we just got to focus on what we do here for the Memphis Grizzlies and go get a ring.”

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The question of if the Grizzlies and Warriors are becoming a rivalry started when Andre Iguodala was traded to Memphis but preferred to play for what he felt was a contender. He was booed last season when he played in Memphis.

The Grizzlies won a play-in game against the Warriors two seasons ago, but Golden State returned the favor on a bigger stage by beating the Grizzlies 4-2 in the Western Conference semifinals in 2022. 

But a rivalry? Morant was quick to decline that notion. 

“That ain’t no rivalry for us,” Morant said. “We focused on us.”

“We don’t run away from smoke,” Morant added. “Whatever comes our way, we there for it. As far as rivalry, we don’t have no teams that are our rivals in this league.”

Contact Damichael Cole at damichael.cole@commercialappeal.com and on Twitter @damichaelc