Mavs’ Klay Thompson fires back at Grizzlies’ Ja Morant after postgame tiff

Klay Thompson has had enough of Ja Morant’s talking. And he made that pretty clear after Dallas’ 102-96 loss to Memphis on Saturday.

Morant didn’t play, missing his third straight game with a calf strain, but he still walked over to Thompson after the buzzer and barked.

Coaches and security stepped between them, but the tension between the two has been brewing for years — going all the way back to Golden State knocking out the Grizzlies in the 2022 playoffs on the way to Thompson’s fourth ring.

“He’s a funny guy,” Thompson told reporters, via ESPN’s Tim MacMahon. “He has a lot to say all the time, especially for a guy who rarely takes accountability.”

Thompson had mixed it up with multiple Grizzlies earlier in the night.

He confronted Santi Aldama for tripping Mavericks rookie Cooper Flagg — a foul later upgraded to a flagrant one — and traded words with Vince Williams Jr., earning both players a technical.

But the real fireworks came after the game.

During the Grizzlies’ on-court TV interview, Morant dapped up teammate Cam Spencer and took a shot at Thompson, who scored a season-high 22 but missed a potential game-tying three in the final seconds.

“Tell him who the best shooter in the house was,” Morant said. “It wasn’t bruh from Golden State.”

Thompson brushed it off. Sort of.

“Nothing of intelligent depth,” he said of Morant’s comments, before taking aim at the suspensions and injuries that have derailed the guard’s career since his back-to-back All-Star seasons.

“He’s been running his mouth for a long time. It’s funny to run your mouth when you’re on the bench. It’s kind of the story of his career so far, just leaving us wanting more.

“We all want to see him out there… but he’s been letting a lot of other stuff get in the way of that.

“When you’re a star, it comes with responsibility. I hate to see that go to waste.”

Morant has been suspended in each of the past three seasons — eight games, then 25, then a one-game team ban earlier this year — and is having the worst season of his career, shooting 36 percent from the field and 17 percent from deep.

Thompson even connected Aldama’s foul on Flagg to what he called “dirty stuff” Memphis pulled during that 2022 series, including Dillon Brooks’ flagrant that broke Gary Payton II’s elbow.

Thompson, now 35 and coming off the Dallas bench, said he still respects the old Grit ’n Grind Grizzlies.

These Grizzlies? Not so much.

“They just talk a lot,” Thompson said. “They’ve always talked a lot. And never really backed it up either. I respect guys who back up the talk with play… talk is cheap.”