It only took one minute. 

Fifty-three seconds, actually. 

The San Antonio Spurs’ Victor Wembanyama switched a pick to defend Ja Morant, who sized the rookie up, all 88 inches of him, and the Memphis crowd began to roar in anticipation. The roar built for a pregnant couple of seconds as Morant dribbled between his legs and back again. 

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Here they were. 

Wembanyama, a 7-foot-4 phenom considered the best prospect since LeBron James. A shot-blocking prodigy with an 8-foot wingspan.

Morant, at 24 already All-NBA-certified, owner of two of the five highest-scoring playoff games ever authored by a player under 23. A head-seeking highlight machine with a booster-rocket base. 

Two rare talents, and two of the league’s most compelling young stars, their very difference the foundation of intrigue: Wembanyama at 7-4. Morant at 6-2. (“He’s very small and very fast,” Wembanyama said of Morant after the game.)

And here they were together for the first time ever. It was Wembanyama’s second game against the Grizzlies, but his first in Memphis and first against Morant. 

And 53 seconds in, they were alone on an island. 

The crowd roared. 

What was going to happen?

That roar, that sudden, rising anticipation, that suspended moment: It is itself the point. 

It reminds us that coming to an NBA game, when a player like Morant is on your team, can sometimes be about more — or perhaps it’s less — than winning or losing the game. Or where a team is in the standings, or which direction it’s headed. 

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All of that can sometimes fall away, and it’s instead about turning a sold-out, 18,000-seat arena into a playground. It’s about stopping time, savoring the instant of stillness, and then starting it back again. And it’s about what happens then, divorced from all context but the moment itself. 

So what happened then?

Morant dribbled through his legs and back again. He attacked, crossing right, getting past Wembanyama and right to the rim. Where Wemby, as they call him, reached out a go-go gadget arm and casually blocked Morant’s shot off the backboard.

Wemby 1, Ja 0. 

But the start of something big. 

Morant feeling his way against this generational talent was a riveting subplot to a game that was otherwise often far from that. 

Rejected at the rim, Morant found other ways to beat Wembanyama.

Two minutes after getting blocked, Morant got a switch again. Wemby dropped back. Morant froze him with a hard dribble at the free-throw line and sailed a lob pass over him for a Bismack Biyombo dunk. 

With a couple of minutes left in the half, Morant and Wembanyama found themselves both in the game again, and out on an island together again. 

Morant backed out, that same anticipation building. He tossed the ball to teammate Luke Kennard and then got it right back.

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Here we go. 

Morant took one dribble in, Wemby backed up, and Morant drained a 3-pointer. 

I guess that works too, if not quite what we wanted.

The third quarter was quiet, but the Grizzlies were pulling away, on their way to a 106-98 win.

Ja vs. Wemby. Maybe it wasn’t all it could be, but it was a tantalizing first act. A hint of things to come. 

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And then it came. 

Two minutes into the fourth quarter, Morant got Wemby back-pedaling in transition.

Sometimes Morant detonates, and sometimes he performs sorcery. 

This was the latter. 

A dribble left, a cross right, up with two hands, into the darkest of basketball nights. Then Morant hung in the air, that extra half-second so few can conjure, dropping a lefty shot over a now-descending Wembanyama. 

This moment tore a kind of fissure in the fabric of the game. For 11 points in two minutes, all scored or assisted by Morant, FedExForum didn’t just become a playground. It became Ja’s Playground.

The layup over Wemby was nice. So was a pull-up 3-pointer. And definitely the run-ending pocket pass alley-oop, too quick for Wemby to react, converted in reverse-dunk style by Santi Aldama. 

But at the 9:11 mark — a number Wembanyama might have wanted to dial in the moment — Morant gave the people what they truly craved. 

Coming around a pick and finding Wemby, Morant faked right, crossed left past him and to the other side of the rim. He went up with two hands again, this time over the top of the rim and through contact.

He scaled Mt. Wemby.

Morant played it cool after the game. 

“There wasn’t no excitement. I don’t try to dunk on people like I used to no more,” said Morant. “Just get a bucket, man.”

Sure, tell that to the guy — he was wearing No. 12 — who slapped the backboard after the play and turned to roar back at the fans who had been roaring in anticipation of just such a moment. 

A “rim grazer,” Morant called it.

Two hands, through contact. 

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“I feel like that’s your first little high school dunk right there,” he said. 

At 19, Wembanyama is nearly young enough to be in high school, but Morant never confronted the likes of this back in South Carolina. 

If Morant was playing it down, backcourt mate Desmond Bane was keeping it real. 

“Ja’s capable of dunking on anybody, but I saw it coming,” said Bane. “Once he gets to that drop right-left (dribble), and he’s close to the rim, it’s ugly for whoever’s down there. Shhh … add it to the highlight reel.” 

Make no mistake: This was a moment. 

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The Spurs are struggling in Wembanyama’s rookie season, but he’s been everything advertised.

The Grizzlies are 5-2 with Morant back in the lineup, but digging out of a 6-20 record without him. 

But there are miles to go, and Wemby and Morant will be expected to not just carry their respective teams, but to help carry the league, with moments like these. 

“Wemby’s gonna be a great player for a long time in this league. He brings a crowd. People come to watch him. And people come to watch Ja too,” said Kennard. “When you get a matchup like that, it’s big for the NBA. Those two guys are going to be the faces of the NBA for a long time. They’re going to have a lot of matchups throughout their careers and it’s going to be fun to watch.”

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Residing in the same Southwest division, it could be four times a year if both are available. Event games all now. 

“Obviously, we’re going to be facing (Wembanyama) for a really long time,” said Grizzlies head coach Taylor Jenkins. 

March 29 in San Antonio. Then April 9 for the rematch in Memphis. Circle it now. I bet the NBA has, and that what came to FedExForum on Tuesday night will be coming to national television next season.