The Memphis Grizzlies moved to 18-2 without Ja Morant on Monday night. The second-place team in the Western Conference easily beat the short-handed Golden State Warriors, who were on the final leg of a five-game road trip.
While every NBA team should be delighted to reach the postseason, there's always at least one opponent that they'd prefer to avoid facing. This year especially, some of the lower seeds could be extremely dangerous in a first-round matchup.
With the buyout market likely to be a dud, 2022 free agency becomes the next significant transactional checkpoint in an NBA calendar increasingly defined by them.