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Ja Morant just couldn’t help himself.
Roughly nine hours after the NBA issued him a warning for using a gun gesture as a celebration in a game on Tuesday, he appeared to do it again on Thursday night in the first quarter of a game against the Heat.
After he hit a 3 to cut the Grizzlies’ deficit to 14-9, Morant appeared to put his hands up to simulate holding a gun as he ran back to get on defense.
Morant made a similar gesture in the third quarter after hitting a 3-pointer at the 10:10 mark of the third quarter, Yahoo Sports reported.
Naturally, amid all of this, Morant hit the game-winning shot on Thursday night to lift the Grizzlies to a 110-108 win.
“I feel like I’ve been the villain for the last two years now,” Morant said Thursday after the win. “Not even just to this crowd.”
He added he was “well aware” gun gestures have made headlines.
The Grizzlies star first made the finger gun gesture in the direction of the Warriors bench during the Tuesday game, and it was quickly noticed by Golden State’s players.
Morant and Warriors guard Buddy Hield — who later imitated the Memphis star — ended up being given technical fouls for the gesture in that game.
And, the following day, the NBA investigated the matter.
The NBA eventually handed both players warnings after the league determined that the celebrations were “not intended to be violent in nature, but inappropriate and should refrain.”
Morant, of course, has a history with guns after he received multiple suspensions from the NBA over gun-related incidents that have happened over the past few years.
Morant was suspended for eight games in 2023 after flashing a gun in an Instagram Live.
Two months later, he did so again in a separate video that cost him 25 games.
While the gestures have caught people’s attention, WMC-TV sports anchor Matt Infield pushed back on the controversy on X by posting a compilation of videos where Morant had made the same gesture across several games.
“Here’s video of Ja Morant doing this *exact same celebration* in four different games over the last month. This is a complete non-story,” he wrote.
English (US)