Marcus Morris helps Clippers beat 76ers while grieving for childhood friend

The last of the buses whisking the Clippers to Philadelphia’s train station had departed Wells Fargo Center’s loading dock late Friday when their final player emerged from the arena’s lower bowl into a hallway at a slow walk, heading for the exit.

Marcus Morris Sr. was home. The north Philadelphia native had quickly packed in the locker room following a 102-101 Clippers victory, stunning the 76ers with a 24-point comeback, then returned to the court to spend more than half an hour with his friends and family.

Games here have always doubled as reunions. Fewer were in attendance than usual to watch him collect 12 points and nine rebounds on this night, kept away because there were more pressing issues to handle than basketball, the same forces that had led Morris to miss the Clippers’ previous game and rush to his hometown, the same that could easily have sidelined him Friday, as well.

Late Tuesday, Morris said he received a call from his twin brother, Markieff, informing him that their mutual childhood friend Alexander Gaddy had been shot and killed in Philadelphia. Morris said he had been speaking with Gaddy, a 30-year-old father of three, only 10 minutes before his killing.

In a voice so low it was nearly drowned out by noise from workers moving chairs through the arena hallway, Morris said he had barely slept since Tuesday. And he said it was hardly the first time in his life that mourning and basketball had overlapped.

“It’s unfortunate to say it but growing up in Philly, you damn near become numb to it,” Morris said. “I feel like that’s not right. But we’re going to figure out a way to cope. And we got his family, his kids and my friends and seeing him off [Saturday] and just go forward.”

Morris, 32, stayed after the Clippers had left for the next stop on their eight-game road trip to attend a funeral Saturday for Gaddy. He plans to rejoin the team in time for a Sunday matinee against the Knicks in New York.

The Clippers “just gave me my space, allowed me to be me, everybody reached out and gave their condolences and I appreciate that,” he said.

At 6-foot-8, Morris has lasted 11 NBA seasons because of his soft outside shot but also his enforcer’s streak. The toughness is inextricably connected to his upbringing in Philadelphia, where he had met Gaddy as a child, he said. The Morris twins had already become coveted recruits when their family’s row house burned during their junior year of high school. They, an older brother and their mother moved a few blocks into the home of their grandparents, where the brothers slept in the basement. They told Bleacher Report in 2016 that because the home did not have central heating, the twins would alternate days rising early to help their grandfather bring kerosene home to fill the home’s space heaters.

Yet Friday it was Morris’ teammates who said they felt a duty to “protect” their protector, as point guard Reggie Jackson said, and “put our arms around him and let him know that we’re here for him.”

Morris missed Wednesday’s loss in Denver but chose to play against the 76ers knowing it was his only regular-season game in his hometown, and that family and friends would be in the arena.

“We’re just appreciative that he came to play but he didn’t have to, honestly,” Jackson said. “I know we play basketball together and that’s what ties us together but there is so much more time put in off the court, so yeah, we just want him to know that we’re a band of brothers and we got his back.”

Morris made a pair of fourth-quarter three-pointers Friday to accelerate the comeback that made the Clippers the only team this season to win multiple games after trailing by at least 24 points. After Morris missed two free throws with nine seconds remaining and the Clippers leading by one, Philadelphia could not make a go-ahead basket in the final moments.

Clippers forward Marcus Morris Sr. and 76ers forward Georges Niang, after diving to the court for a loose ball, react to the official’s whistle.

(Matt Slocum / Associated Press)

“That’s things that professional athletes have to do that people don’t understand, coming out and playing when you lose a really good friend, still have to compete and still have to do your job,” coach Tyronn Lue said. “I give him a lot of credit for coming out and playing tonight, especially being at home, this is where it happened, and having to deal with that. Hat’s off to Marcus. We needed every bit of it.”

Morris had been unable to see family members during the Clippers’ 2021 visit to Philadelphia because of restrictive NBA protocols that largely kept players out of the public as a precaution against coronavirus exposure. It was why this season’s trip promised a more typical reunion. Yet it arrived under much different, and more painful, circumstances. A 24-point comeback would not be the most trying undertaking of his time back home.

“I haven’t really had a chance to really reflect on it because time has been moving and got games, flying, you know what I mean, family,” Morris said. “I haven’t been to Philadelphia to see my family for a while. So it was just a lot of that. And it’s a tough time.”

UP NEXT

AT NEW YORK

When: 10 a.m. PST, Sunday

On the air: TV: Bally Sports; Radio: 570, 1330

Update: The Knicks are 22-24 amid a three-game losing streak and are 11-14 at home. Last season New York’s turnaround centered on its defensive progress under coach Tom Thibodeau, a mentor of Clippers coach Tyronn Lue during their time on the Boston Celtics’ staff. This season the Knicks rank 14th in defensive rating.

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