Memphis Grizzlies star Ja Morant has been a joy to watch all NBA season long. And when Ian Eagle gets to call one of his games, it’s even better.
Case in point, a moment during Memphis’s playoff series against the Minnesota Timberwolves in which Morant threw down a dunk so fierce that it needed no further explanation. And yet, Eagle somehow made it even better with his “JA-BREAKER” call that was so good it just had to have been planned.
https://twitter.com/thecomeback/status/1519129300108079104
So, was it planned? Or did it just come off the dome at the moment for the veteran sportscaster?
Ian Eagle had his iconic “Ja Breaker!” call for Ja Morant’s ridiculous dunk ready for years. @memgrizz pic.twitter.com/leDg5l9bO0
— Damon Amendolara (@DamonAmendo) May 5, 2022
“You have a lot of things going on in your brain when you sit down to do these games, and you play out scenarios that could happen,” Eagle said during an appearance on The DA Show on Thursday. “So when you prepare, you prepare for everything. That’s not to say that it was ready to go, that it was going to click in, in a moment’s notice. It just happened to hit me, in that moment, that it was pretty special. It was something that’d been marinating in my brain for the last couple of years.
“Timing, more than anything else…Just felt completely appropriate and came out of my mouth at the right time… When you start doing work for the games, that’s part of the deal. You’ve got to nail the moments — the rudimentary part of the game is, you’ve got to be on top of what’s happening in front of you… Doing these games for 28 years, you find a rhythm and recognize that those special moments only happen every so often.”
“So you were sitting on Ja Breaker for ‘years?'” marveled host Damon Amendolara, and we second the sentiment. Eagle is no stranger to epic NBA calls and we’re excited to see what else has been simmering in his brain, waiting for the right moment to let loose following a posterizing dunk or buzzer-beating three.
About Sean Keeley
Along with writing for Awful Announcing and The Comeback, Sean is the Managing Editor for Comeback Media. Previously, he created the Syracuse blog Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician and wrote 'How To Grow An Orange: The Right Way to Brainwash Your Child Into Rooting for Syracuse.' He has also written non-Syracuse-related things for SB Nation, Curbed, and other outlets. He currently lives in Seattle where he is complaining about bagels. Send tips/comments/complaints to sean@thecomeback.com.