Memphis Grizzlies' Ja Morant (knee) returns Saturday vs. New Orleans
Memphis Grizzlies point guard Ja Morant will make his return to the court Saturday, the team announced.
Morant has not played since injuring his right knee March 18. He has been listed as out with a sore knee since then.
The Grizzlies have thrived with Morant on and off the court this season and are 20-4 in games in which he hasn't played, although they have dropped their last two.
Memphis has already secured the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference playoffs.
Memphis coach Taylor Jenkins said the team will monitor Morant's minutes throughout the game.
"He may not play his playoff minutes, but we'll be smart," Jenkins said when asked about any minutes restriction on Morant.
"Obviously, we want to get him as good a run as possible with the group that he's going to be playing with, but he's been off for a few weeks. We want to be intentional about not throwing him right into the high-volume minutes right off the bat."
Jenkins mentioned chemistry heading into the playoffs as one reason for bringing Morant back before the postseason starts next week.
"A lot of it's just getting back on the floor, playing competitive basketball after a pretty long layoff," Jenkins said. "Those are all the factors that kind of go into our head, and if our medical team says this is good and he's feeling good about it, I think that that's a confidence boost going into the playoffs having been off for a couple of weeks here."
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