The Grizzlies won their second game in a row with a 15-point victory over the Los Angeles Clippers. What I saw at the Forum:
1. Bench Play: I wrote in my pre-game post that I would be interested to see how the team’s three rookies faired tonight, and that getting solid contributions from DeMarre Carroll and/or Sam Young would be a key to victory. Well, all three rookies gave the team good minutes tonight.
Carroll had 10 points (4-6 shooting) and 5 rebounds in 20 minutes and made some of the energy plays that are key to his game: Stepping up to take a charge from a rumbling Craig Smith, following his own miss for an offensive rebound, finishing plays around the rim off setups from teammates.
Young played 12 minutes and was an efficient scorer with 6 points on 3-6 shooting. He missed a dunk off a terrific Marc Gasol feed, but made a Tim Duncan-esqe mid-range bank shot that I’m almost certain was intentional. After shooting an abysmal 5-24 over the previous four games, Young has gone 10-17 in this two-game win “streak.” And I think that’s far from an accidental correlation.
As for Thabeet, he came back from injury to give the team respectable back-up center minutes: 4 points (2-4 shooting) and 4 rebounds in 11 minutes with a nice weakside block on an Al Thornton drive. Thabeet’s complete lack of fluidity on the offensive end is discouraging — he scored his first basket on an alleged baseline jump hook that was more like a flukish jump “push” and one offensive rebound that should have been a putback dunk came up dry as he was unable to gather himself to get back off the floor in time. But we all know now that we aren’t judging Thabeet by typically #2 pick standards: He needs to become the next Joel Pryzbilla before he can start thinking about being a poor man’s Mutombo. Thabeet’s rookie season is about baby steps, and he took one tonight.
Overall, the Grizzlies got 31 points from a group of bench players who had averaged a collective 17.2 coming into tonight.
