- LARRY KUZNIEWSKI
- Mike Conley helped lead a balanced, share-the-ball attack as the Grizzlies won comfortably against the depleted Timberwolves.
The Lead: The Grizzlies were facing a Minnesota Timberwolves team in a world of hurt, playing without Kevin Love and Andrei Kirilenko, among many others, and owners of exactly one road win this season without Love in the lineup. So there’s a limit to how much you can learn from this one.
But it did display two hopeful new facts of life for Grizzlies basketball following the Rudy Gay trade: Ball movement and depth.
The Grizzlies assisted on 30 of 41 baskets, with Marc Gasol and Mike Conley sharing the team lead with 8 each and Tony Allen, Jerryd Bayless, and Tony Wroten chipping in three each. The 30 assists was a season high.
The beneficiaries of much of the his passing largess were the team’s two new small forwards, Tayshaun Prince and Austin Daye, who combined to score 34 points on 14-17 shooting. (Prince was a perfect 8-8.) Don’t expect production quite like that ever again, but the contrast between Prince and Daye and the departed Rudy Gay is pretty stark. Some nights the Grizzlies’ will miss Gay’s isolation scoring. But with Prince cutting well off the ball and spotting up in the corner and Daye finding space for a potentially deadly catch-and-shoot game, they can help supply points without stopping the ball. In this one, nine of their 14 buckets were assisted. Two of the other five were tip-ins.
The Grizzlies’ assist rate shot up immediately after the trade. Improved scoring has lagged behind, but we’ve seen that this weekend. Hopefully it’s a trend and not a blip.
“The ball movement is getting contagious,” Lionel Hollins said after the game. “Everybody is moving the ball. It’s nice; giving goals to Zach, guys cutting. The whole team is just looking to make the extra pass and the extra play. When you make shots, the assists do pile up, but I think the willingness to pass is important, and we are doing that.”
