The Kings faced the upgraded Grizzlies.
The authoritative New York Times predicted the Kings would win 4–2.
But more people thought the Kings would beat the Grizzlies 4–1.
On April 27, the two teams would face off for the first time at Golden 1 Center.
At the pregame press conference,
the Grizzlies were represented by Mitchell and Morant.
Mitchell was relatively humble and low-key off the court.
Though he was still fairly young, he was a few years older than Morant and had more experience.
On top of that, after years of making no progress with the Jazz, he was desperate to win a championship. Now that he was with the Grizzlies, he was willing to overlook some of the younger Morant's shortcomings.
So the two got along very well.
Off the court, they joked around and laughed together.
At the press conference, the reporters predictably started stirring things up:
"Mitchell, once your partnership clicked, you became one of the most terrifying teams in the league. In the final ten games of the Regular Season, your record was exactly the same as the Kings': nine wins and one loss."
"A lot of people say that if anyone in the league can beat the Kings, it's the Grizzlies. Do you think that's true?"
Mitchell replied:
"The Kings are definitely a very strong team, but I think young players should have some fire. Since we had the same record as them over the last ten games, we should try to beat them. And I believe that Ja, Gobert, and I have a chance to do it together."
The reporters could only shake their heads at Mitchell's answer.
As expected, the longer someone had been in the league, the more slippery they became. It was hard to get anything useful out of them.