Larry Kuzniewski
Last night, the Grizzlies played the second game of the Smallball Lineup Era (after a whole day of “Grit & Grind is Dead” garment-rending from the Memphis media, myself included) and came away with a big 112-95 win over the struggling Washington Wizards.
Both teams started out playing fast—”uncontrolled” fast, not really “fast-paced offense” fast—but the game ended up being played at a pace factor of 95.0 according to Basketball Reference, which is only slightly higher than the Grizzlies’ season average (94.4, 23rd in the league) and well below Washington’s (98.8, 4th in the league). Still, it looked like the Grizzlies were moving at Mach 3, flying around and finding a steady rhythm on offense that heretofore has only been present in fits and starts.
The minutes (for a SEGABABA) were heavy—Jeff Green and Marc Gasol each played 39, and Green just played 44 the night before in Miami—but it’s clear that the Grizzlies are on to something, whether it’s sustainable or not. Especially with Matt Barnes in the starting lineup, making this change may actually be the best use of the players the Grizzlies have. We will see.
Five Thoughts
★ For the first time in a while, Mike Conley and Marc Gasol both had a good night at the same time. Conley’s struggles and Gasol’s lack of mobility (and, perhaps, effort on the defensive end) have been well-documented in these pages, but last night was a return to form for both of them, with Gasol finishing with 24 points, 12 rebounds, and 6 assists, and Conley with 18 points, 11 assists, and 4 rebounds. The lackluster play of these two has been the real issue with the Grizzlies all throughout their string of blowout losses and miracle wins, and no matter what happens to the starting lineup—whether it stays as-is or moves back to a bigger grouping—if Conley and Gasol can’t play like the played last night, the Grizzlies won’t get far.
Larry Kuzniewski
Mike Conley bounced back from a string of bad games.
This year marks a clear transition from the “Core Four” to the Conley/Gasol-centered team so many of us have been speculating about for so long, and it’s taking both guys a while to adjust to their new role as the central hub of the team, around which everything else revolves. As they grow into that role—and ride the wave of whatever else is going to happen this year—it’s good to see that they both still have it in them to play these sorts of games. For a minute, there, it was questionable.
Larry Kuzniewski
★ Using Jeff Green as a power forward with a lot of space in which to operate goes a long way towards neutralizing some of his weaknesses as a player. The starting lineup change (and subsequent stretches of time when the dreaded Conley/Lee/Green/Randolph/Gasol lineup is on the floor afterwards—the Grizzlies’ version of “The Death Lineup” except we’re calling it that for different reasons) has reinforced that the real issue here may be that Green and Zach Randolph can’t really be on the floor together, because for Green to play his best basketball, he needs the space around the rim and under the foul line open for his slashes to the basket.
Green isn’t a “stretch 4” in the sense that he pulls defenses all the way out to the three point line. He still shoots below 30% from long range, so defenses are happy to let him have those shots, and if he hits a few from the corner, he hits a few from the corner. But what he does do well is find ways to get to the basket, and he can’t do that with Randolph on the floor.
…which is why I’ve been saying for a while now that Green should be the one coming off the bench as the backup power forward, not starting in Randolph’s place. My sense is that this move is also about Randolph’s defense, and allowing Barnes and Green to be interchangeable at both forward spots allows Barnes to take whichever defensive assignment is the toughest. But my doubts linger—is moving Jeff Green into Zach Randolph’s place as a starter prioritizing the right guy? Green has been scoring more in his starting role, but his offensive efficiency is still below Randolph’s, and his Defensive Rating on the season is still higher (which is a bad thing). I guess we’ll see.
★ The much bigger deal to me than who starts at power forward is making sure Courtney Lee and Matt Barnes stay in the starting lineup. These two are the best wing combo the Grizzlies have right now, playing solid basketball on both ends of the floor, and compared to the alternatives, they’re basically the “least worst” option the Grizzlies have in the wing rotation right now. Even if the Grizzlies go back “big” and move Randolph back into the starting lineup, I think the Lee/Barnes pairing should stay.
★ It’s hard to get a feel for how much of last night was the Grizzlies’ new-look offense taking advantage of the Wizards, and how much of it was just the fact that the Wizards aren’t very good defensively. According to Basketball Reference, they have the 25th-ranked defense in the league (only one spot worse than the Grizzlies at the moment, but hey, who’s keeping track?), so this is a team that’s easy to take advantage of. Certainly the Grizzlies just decided to change what they’re doing and aren’t comfortable with it yet, and a team with a more established defense would be able to find the weaknesses in that and prey on them. Not the Wizards. So we’re going to have to let the sample size get bigger before we start evaluating whether the small starting lineup is really the “season saver” type move it’s designed to be.
★ One more encouraging point from last night: The Wizards made a run to cut the Grizzlies’ 20-point lead back down to 11, and the Grizzlies didn’t choke it away. This year, the Grizzlies have not been able to hold a lead on anybody, so to see them do it against a Wizards team that has some offensive weapons, was nice. You don’t want to believe that they’re not mentally tough enough to hang on in any of these games. Nice to be proven right every now and then. Why has it happened in the last two games, though? My theory: fatigue from running more and a reversion to the original offense with which they’re all familiar, and mostly the latter. These guys have been running the same sets for six years now. When the going gets tough, guess what plays they’re going to run? The same ones they’ve run for six years.
Tweet of the Night
This tweet from SB Nation’s Mike Prada made me laugh, and also reinforces my point about Washington’s poor defense:
Grizz sending a cutter through on ball reversals. Shouldn’t be hard to stop. Wiz D looks like it’s discovering electricity for the 1st time.
— Mike Prada (@MikePradaSBN) December 15, 2015
Larry Kuzniewski
Dave Joerger: not fired.
Pontification Maximus
The Grizzlies didn’t lose last night, but even if they had, I genuinely don’t believe anything would’ve happened regarding Dave Joerger’s job status. The rumors were flying yesterday—”League Sources” saying Joerger was in danger and that John Hollinger is “on thin ice”—but I’m not sure league sources knew what they were talking about in this case. It doesn’t make any sense to fire Joerger now, unless the front office folks are just mad that he keeps saying the Grizzlies’ roster isn’t very good. Sure, it’s impolitic, but he’s not wrong.
Granted, it’s not the kind of thing any NBA coach can keep saying for a whole season and not lose his team. Hopefully now that the team is playing better—smaller, but demonstrably better—Joerger feels comfortable enough to lay off the “we’re just not good” rhetoric.
As for Hollinger, I think that rumor is even less true than the Joerger one. With any luck, whatever is going on with the Grizzlies front office—my sense is that sure, there are tensions between the basketball ops staff and the coaching staff and the roster, but they’re not anything out of the ordinary for a team that is underperforming and getting blown out at home—getting back into the habit of winning games by a little and only losing games by a little will be ameliorative. Time will tell.
