Weekend Preview: The first half of the Grizzlies’ current West Coast road trip didn’t go particularly well and we probably should have seen the problem in the scheduling. I’d bet that if the games had been reversed — had the Grizzlies played the Warriors on the first night and the Lakers on the back end — the team would have gone 1-1. As is, the Griz, after losing to a Lakers team that looks even better than last year’s champs, faced the uptempo Warriors on the second night of a back-to-back, the Warriors having been off the night before, and with injury, foul trouble, poor bench play, and the fast pace all feeding the fatigue, couldn’t quite pull off a late comeback attempt.
Now, the Grizzlies have another back-to-back set, two more chances to avoid a repeat of last season’s winless early West Coast road trip. Through five games, the Grizzlies have really struggled to defend against three-point shooting, ranking last in three-pointers given up and 28th in opponent three-point percentage. This could be bad news tonight against the Suns, who were the league’s best three-point shooting team a season ago and are off to a strong start in that area — 5th in percentage and fourth in makes. I’d be particularly worried about frontcourt shooters Channing Frye, Jared Dudley, and Hedo Turkoglu. Ideally, the Grizzlies would combat the Suns outside game with their own inside game, but that’s been lacking this season. In other words, this should be a good night for the return of Zach Randolph.
Tomorrow, the Grizzlies face the Sacramento Kings, who are off to a promising 3-2 start but against a very weak schedule (the wins came against Minnesota, Cleveland, and Toronto, all by single digit). The story with the Kings is a couple of John Calipari protégés in Tyreke Evans and Demarcus Cousins and the Grizzlies will need to match their physicality. It should be fun to see Cousins match-up with either Randolph or Marc Gasol. Evans should pose more of a problem, particularly when the Kings go with a bigger backcourt. Paging Tony Allen?
