Road Recap: Grizzlies 101, Bulls 91

Last night, the Grizzlies beat the Bulls 101-91 in Chicago in one of the most solid games we’ve seen from the Griz starters beginning-to-end since the All-Star break. Just like Saturday night’s game in New Orleans, the Griz got out to a big lead that was then erased by their opponent, but this time, it was the Grizzlies who held on to win it. This was the first game in a while where the bench (with the obvious exception of Tony Allen) didn’t really matter much—where the starters carried almost all of the load—and though I guess that’s not necessarily a positive, in this case (where the bench has carried more than their share of the work in several recent Griz wins) it was good to see the starters playing to win for a bulk of the minutes.¹

Larry Kuzniewski

Clearly not taken last night, when the Bulls had on St. Patrick’s Day jerseys that looked exactly like Celtics jerseys.

Marc Gasol had an incredible game last night, scoring 15 points on 7-10 shooting in the 3rd quarter alone and generally beasting out against his big brother Pau, in what was one of the more intense battles between los hermanos Gasol that I can remember. The two played a very physical game against each other, with Marc usually getting the upper hand (to Pau’s very visible frustration), and then later in the game with Pau matched up on Zach Randolph the Grizzlies continued trying to muscle him into submission. Gasol knew he was “on” in the third, though, looking off wide-open guys he usually passes to (for better or for worse) to take and make his own shot. We haven’t seen Gasol be that consistently aggressive on offense in a little bit—the “old”/”passive”/”facilitator” Marc makes more appearances than I’m sure the Grizzlies would like—but when he’s really got it going, he’s incomparable.

Speaking of incomparable Grizzlies players, Zach Randolph had 8 and 3 in the same third quarter in which Gasol had 15 points, on his way to a 16 and 9 night that saw him relishing in his role as the world’s best garbage man. Against a tough Chicago frontline, Randolph had to fight and scrap for everything he got, and he still got enough to give the Griz a boost.

Probably the most interesting aspect of this game, though, was the rotation in the fourth quarter. For one thing, Courtney Lee didn’t play at all, while rookie JaMychal Green did. Instead of Lee, Tony Allen and Jeff Green played the whole quarter, with a little help from Vince Carter while the other two shifted around matchup-wise. The last 8 minutes of the game were all Conley, Allen, (Jeff) Green, and Gasol, with JaMychal Green getting some run before Randolph rejoined the fray around the 5-minute mark. In those final 8 minutes, the Grizzlies outscored the Bulls 21-13. In the last five minutes of the game, with that Conley-Allen-Jeff Green-Randolph-Gasol lineup in, the Griz outscored the Bulls 16-3.

Larry Kuzniewski

Mike Conley needs a breather.

Small sample size, sure, but that’s a pretty good showing for a lineup that hasn’t seen a lot of time on the floor together since Green was acquired back in January. One wonders whether Joerger has been saving that particular wrinkle to try out now, in the stretch run, or whether it really hadn’t occurred to him that that might be his best lineup. One thing is certain: that’s enough of a successful experiment to warrant some more time together as the “closing” lineup, and maybe potentially even as the new starting lineup if Lee continues to shoot below his averages for a little while.

At any rate, the win was the first of this road trip. Now the Grizzlies travel to Boston to face the Celtics (who presumably will wear jerseys similar to the weird green-and-white getups the Bulls were wearing last night) and then the Washington Wizards (I always want to say “Bullets” and then I get that Clash song from Sandinista! stuck in my head) in a back-to-back. Given the beating he took again last night while on his way to a 9 point, 9 assist, 5 rebound night against an admittedly depleted Chicago backcourt, I still hold out hope that Joerger will rest Mike Conley at least one of these games, even if it’s not going to help him that much. Let the guy catch a breath while playing East teams, even decent ones.

We’ll see. Either way, a successful outing against a good (if injury-riddled) team, which goes a long way towards setting the tone for the rest of the road trip.