Larry Kuzniewski
Zach Randolph had 21 and 13 last night while trying to will the shorthanded Grizzlies to a win.
I’m not sure there’s really much to say about last night’s 94-86 road loss to the Los Angeles Clippers—the facts and numbers speak for themselves. The Grizzlies were without Tony Allen and Mike Conley from the opening tip, as they will likely be for the rest of the regular season. Eight minutes or so into the first quarter, Marc Gasol came down on DeAndre Jordan’s foot and rolled his ankle and left the game.
With 6:08 left in the game, the score was tied at 79. The Clippers bench is atrocious, and every time Doc Rivers had to rest his starters, the Grizzlies made up whatever ground they’d lost and usually grabbed the lead, as well. But those last six minutes are where everything unraveled. Because they were missing two of their three best players and three of their best five, the effort being expended on the second night of a back-to-back after a really tough game against Utah the night before was too much. Guys had no legs. They were fighting—they always fight (except those moments this spring when they don’t)—but there just wasn’t enough left in the tank for them to execute.
Turnovers were a problem. Lots of bad passes, lots of gambles with the ball, lots of poor decision-making, but it’s easy to understand why there were so many: last night some of the five-man lineups that played long stretches had never been on the floor together in a game before.
JaMychal Green played 17 minutes and performed better than your standard “D-League end of the bench big” had any right to. Jordan Adams only played 6:30; turns out maybe he should’ve been playing spot minutes all year long so he’d be ready for this sort of situation. Alas, he wasn’t. I don’t hate to say “I told you so,” either. I told you so. Clearly having somebody else to play at the 2 spot last night would’ve helped the Grizzlies get over the hump, but instead, Adams had 3 rebounds and a foul in his 6:30.
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Larry Kuzniewski
Jeff Green had 15 points on 16 shots and played 40 minutes.
Vince Carter has had a rough couple of days, too. He was bad in the Utah game, and then last night wasn’t much better, going 1-6 in 20 minutes and getting visibly angry with Beno Udrih for not calling a play—the second game in which I’ve seen Carter openly frustrated with Udrih out on the court. Maybe I’d have more sympathy for Carter’s position if Udrih hadn’t shot 67% last night, mostly on his go-to midrange leaners.
At any rate, even at this late stage of the regular season, what little shooting the Grizzlies had is still a night-to-night thing, especially with Carter’s re-regression. Sometimes it’s there, and sometimes it isn’t. The lack of scoring last night was a problem. Fortunately for the Grizzlies, the Clippers’ bench isn’t any better, or last night could’ve gotten ugly in a hurry.
This is not how the Grizzlies wanted to enter the playoffs: limping down the stretch and hoping that Mike Conley, Tony Allen, and now Marc Gasol will be ready to go when the first round starts next weekend. For the moment, the Grizzlies still hold the second seed, but they have to win out to keep it, and the Warriors so far haven’t indicated that they’ll be resting guys on Monday when the Grizzlies roll into town.
The ideal scenario is probably this one, which Matt Moore outlined last night on Twitter:
Best case scenario for Memphis: Win out. Clips win out. Spurs drop one. That’s the ideal. 2. Grizz 3. Clips 4. Blazers 5. Spurs.
— Hardwood Paroxysm (@HPbasketball) April 12, 2015
Larry Kuzniewski
Beno Udrih shot 67% last night, mostly from midrange, where he continues to be a deadly shooter.
Which is to say: if you want the Grizzlies to succeed, you should become a New Orleans Pelicans fan for the next four days. They play the Rockets in Houston tonight, and the also play the Spurs in New Orleans on the last night of the season. If somehow they beat them both—something they’re certainly capable of; they just beat the Warriors on Tuesday before getting clobbered by the Grizzlies—they’ll be helping the Grizzlies cling to the 2 seed and a first-round matchup with Dallas. If the Spurs drop to the 5 seed, that also means that Spurs/Warriors could potentially happen in the second round, leaving the Grizzlies, assuming they get past Dallas, playing the winner of a potential Clippers/Rockets series in the second round, which is clearly the “easiest” path to the Conference Finals for the Griz.
It’s not over yet. Last night’s loss does not mean that the Grizzlies are doomed and the world is ending. But it did hurt their ability to control their own destiny, and that’s never good. The injury bug has waited until the last two weeks of the regular season to bite this year, and bite hard, and that’s disheartening. However these two remaining games play out, the Grizzlies won’t make it far in the playoffs without Conley, Gasol, and Allen at something approaching full strength anyway. Getting them back to health has to be the priority for the whole franchise.
Grizzlies fans should be satisfied with how hard the team fought last night, but I understand why they won’t be. Injuries are unraveling things a bit for the Grizzlies right now at the worst possible time. With a little help from our feathered New Orleans friends (and maybe a little rest for the Spurs’ big three, but I doubt that’ll happen), things can still work out for the Griz to have home court advantage and also stay on the opposite side of the bracket from the Spurs and Warriors until the Conference Finals, and that’s always been the best-case scenario.
Tweet of the Night
Shortly after it was announced that Marc Gasol wouldn’t be returning to the game with an ankle injury:
Just watching this Grizzlies game pic.twitter.com/Xvl2Ejeegx
— Peter Edmiston (@peteredmiston) April 12, 2015
Up Next
Tomorrow night, the Grizzlies play the Golden State Warriors in Oakland. The Warriors have indicated that they won’t be resting players, but one wonders if they’ll still play their starters full minutes or not this close to the beginning of the playoffs, or whether they’ll just play enough to stay fresh and then sit. The Warriors have had that #1 seed wrapped up for a while now, so they don’t really have much to play for. All of these things are in the Grizzlies’ favor, especially since they’ll probably be without Conley still, Gasol might not be 100%, and Tony Allen isn’t even traveling with the team on this trip.
After that, it’s Wednesday night at home against Indiana. One thing that helps the Grizzlies is that the game got picked up by ESPN, and now starts late—8:30 Memphis time. That means the Spurs/Pelicans game will be well underway, along with most of the other 7pm Western Conference games, and by the end of the game the Griz will know whether they need to win or lose. It’s not impossible that the Grizzlies need to lose the Indiana game to avoid the Spurs in the first round, and thus just sit everyone but Russ Smith, Jordan Adams, Jon Leuer, Jarnell Stokes, and JaMychal Green for the whole second half. Being able to know what you need before that game is over is a clear advantage. Ideally, though, the Grizzlies, having beaten Golden State, need to win Wednesday to secure 2nd, and they do.
