Quickish hits on a handful of notable Griz topics:
- LARRY KUZNIEWSKI
- The Grizzlies are still trying to shoot past the Nuggets in the race for the three seed.
The Playoff Race: To the disappointment of Grizzlies fans everywhere, the Denver Nuggets’ near-indestructible homecourt advantage held last night against the Dallas Mavericks, despite the Mavericks leading for most of the fourth quarter. Big defensive plays from Corey Brewer and a game-winning drive with two seconds left from Andre Iguodala secured the win for Denver and denied the Grizzlies a chance to control their destiny in pursuit of the third seed.
Current projections now have a one-game gap between all three teams, with Denver finishing at 56, Memphis at 55, and the Clippers at 54 wins. That would make the Grizzlies technically a fifth seed, but with homecourt advantage over the Clippers in a first-round series. The tough thing for the Grizzlies is they have to be a game better than the Nuggets due to tiebreakers, and are now a half-game back with only seven to go. That’s an increasingly thin margin of error.
Those projections don’t, however, take into account the knee injury to Nuggets forward Danilo Gallinari last night. While Nuggets fans worriedly await medical tests today, most assume the injury will sideline Gallinari for the remainder of the season. Any other outcome would be a surprise. Gallinari is the team’s second-leading scorer. They’re already playing without top scorer Ty Lawson, who has a tear in the plantar fascia in his right heel, but is expected to be back for the playoffs, if not before.
The Nuggets are probably deeper and less dependent on individual players than any team in the league, but this double blow is a pretty severe one. Could it knock them off their game enough to allow the Grizzlies to sneak through to the #3?
Here are the remaining schedules for all three teams in the 3-4-5 race:
Grizzlies (51-24):
at Lakers
at Kings
Bobcats
at Rockets
Clippers (b2b)
at Mavericks
Jazz
Clippers (50-26):
Lakers
Wolves
at Hornets
at Grizzlies (b2b)
Blazers
at Kings
Nuggets (52-24):
Rockets
Spurs
at Mavericks
Blazers
at Bucks
Suns
