- LARRY KUZNIEWSKI
- Mike Conley: The Grizzlies’ leading indicator.
1. Trend or Blip?: It continues to be very difficult to get a handle on exactly how good this Grizzlies team is: A 12-1 November followed by a 7-7 December. A 5-1 start to January, including a perfect West Coast road trip and culminating in a rousing home win over these very Spurs, followed by two really dispiriting losses.
Both of those losses have their mitigating circumstances: Saturday’s night’s road implosion at Dallas felt like a classic “scheduling loss,” the second night of a back-to-back, on the road, after a draining overtime win the night before. Monday night against the Clippers, the absence of both Rudy Gay and Quincy Pondexter threw the rotation into disarray against the league’s deepest team. True, the Clippers were playing without Chris Paul, but they notched a commanding win without Paul again last night in Houston — also on the road, on the second night of a back-to-back.
So, all that makes tonight’s game particularly important — not in terms of outcome as much as performances. A good performance, win or lose, and you can call those last two losses a blip or sorts. Another bad performance — with no good excuse to offer this time— and we’re looking at a troubling trend.
