LOS ANGELES — Dillon Brooks walked through the hallway outside the Grizzlies locker room.

He did not stop to talk.

He had nothing to say about another putrid shooting night.

He had nothing to say about getting ejected from the game.

He had nothing to say about the way he was clowned by LeBron James, the Los Angeles Lakers or his own in-your-face ineptitude.

Grizzlies’ Dillon Brooks ejected from Game 3 versus Lakers

“I ain’t talking,” he told a reporter.

After all that, Brooks wasn’t talking.

He was running.

So the indignity was complete.

Brooks and the Grizzlies lost Game 3 to the Los Angeles Lakers Saturday, 111-101. But the score doesn’t begin to tell the story of this game.

This was the game when Brooks turned himself into a national punchline.

This was the game that may usher him out of Memphis, once and for all.

It has to be the ending, right?

Calkins: We’re here in LA for all ‘the bulls---!’ Oh, and also Game 3!

The Grizzlies can’t put up with this nonsense for another year. Because Brooks put his ego above the franchise, yet again.

All you had to do was watch the first quarter. The first quarter was a Dillon Brooks production. And it was maybe the most embarrassing quarter in franchise history.

Just before tipoff, James walked over to Brooks, confronted him, and the two men stood nose-to-nose.

“It wasn’t private because everybody caught it,” James said. “There was nothing private about it.”

James declined to divulge what was said.

But the stage was set. The actors were in place.

And then the Grizzlies tripped, and fell on their faces, and threw up on themselves.

The score was 35-9 after the first quarter.

35-9!

LeBron James responds: ‘I’m not here for the bulls----'

The Grizzlies scored fewer points in the quarter than any NBA team scored in any quarter in the entire 2022-23 season.

The Lakers 26-point lead was tied for the largest lead at the end of the first quarter in NBA playoffs history.

After that, the rest of the game was a pure diversion, including those 45 points from Ja Morant.

“Pretty bad,” said Grizzlies coach Taylor Jenkins.

No, really bad.

Historically bad.

And while plenty of the bad things that happened did not directly involve Brooks — including Jaren Jackson Jr. and Desmond Bane getting in early foul trouble — the entire fiasco will forever be laid at his feet.

As it should be. Brooks asked for it when he decided to celebrate the Grizzlies’ Game 2 victory by taking unnecessary shots at James.

You recall what James said when Brooks called him “old?”

“The game is won between the four lines, always has, always will be,” he said.

Saturday, the Lakers got the Grizzlies between the four lines. And the Grizzlies couldn’t begin to handle it.

Herrington: Dillon Brooks vs. LeBron James? The best game plan for the Grizzlies might not be so simple

They were overwhelmed by the moment they had created. Brooks’ mouth wrote a check that the Grizzlies couldn’t cash.

That’s why it was so embarrassing. Not just because the Grizzlies came up so small. Because they came up small after talking so big.

Is it possible that Memphis would have lost to the Lakers anyway?

Certainly.

But winning playoff basketball games is hard. Riling up one of the greatest players in the world is just dumb. Especially because Brooks’ comments were so wildly unnecessary.

It was well after Game 2 when he made them. The Grizzlies had scrapped out a critical win. Which is when Brooks made himself the story by saying a series of outlandish things about James.

It wasn’t some genius effort to take pressure off Morant. It wasn’t some clever scheme to get James off his game.

It was selfish.

It was Brooks putting his need for attention ahead of the best interests of the team.

And the Grizzlies enabled it. Just as they have enabled it all along. Jenkins called the comments “competitive banter.” He said, “we embrace people for who they are.”

How about, instead, guiding people to be better versions of themselves? The Grizzlies couldn’t do that for Morant until he had a precipitous fall. Now Brooks has had a fall, too.

Indeed, it’s not entirely clear if Brooks will be eligible to participate in Game 4. After hitting King James in the royal jewels, he was ejected in the second half Saturday.

It seemed like an overreaction by the officials. There was no way Brooks did it intentionally.

How do I know?

Because Brooks can’t hit anything these days.

Calkins: How did Memphis win without Ja? Grizzlies doing Grizzly things.

He shot 3 of 13 Saturday, 1 of 5 from three. What are the odds that Brooks was a perfect 1 of 1 on nut shots? He is shooting just 32.5 percent since the series began.

James himself declined to say whether he thought Brooks should be suspended.

“I’m not on the committee,” he said.

James shrugged off the subject of Brooks, generally. After what everyone had witnessed — including the utter humiliation of the man who had disparaged him — what else was there for him to say?

“I didn’t make a statement,” James said. “I’m not making no statements.”

OK, except maybe one.

“We won tonight,” he said.