Ja Morant vows Grizzlies 'will never play that bad again' - ESPN

OKLAHOMA CITY — After the Memphis Grizzlies were on the wrong side of the most lopsided NBA playoff loss in a decade, Ja Morant kept his message to his teammates short but certainly not sweet.

«We will never play that bad again,» Morant said after the top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder opened their Western Conference playoff series with a 131-80 rout over the Grizzlies on Sunday.

The 51-point margin is the fifth highest in a playoff game in NBA history, according to ESPN Research. It's the most lopsided playoff game in the league since the Chicago Bulls defeated the Milwaukee Bucks by 54 in a 2015 first-round game.

Oklahoma City, which didn't play any of its starters in the fourth quarter, led by as many as 56 points. The record for largest margin of victory in a playoff game is 58, set by the Minneapolis Lakers over the St. Louis Hawks in 1956 and matched by the Denver Nuggets over the New Orleans Hornets in 2009.

«Luckily for us, there's only one way from this, and that's up,» said Grizzlies interim coach Tuomas Iisalo, who took the reins when Taylor Jenkins was fired the day after a 125-104 loss to the Thunder on March 27. «We will analyze it, we'll learn from it, and then we will fix those things that hurt us. But there were a lot of things.»

A blowout win for the Thunder comes as no surprise, especially considering the circumstances. Oklahoma City broke the NBA record for point differential during the regular season (plus-12.9 per game) while going a league-best 68-14.

The Thunder swept the season series against the Grizzlies, winning each of the four games by double figures. The average margin of Oklahoma City's regular-season wins over Memphis was 18.75 points.

The Grizzlies were also dealing with a difficult