Larry Kuzniewski
Gasol goes to work, pre-jersey rip.
It took Marc Gasol taking out his frustrations on his jersey, ripping the front of it wide open à la Hulk Hogan (and also Grizzly legend Darko Milicic), but the Grizzlies got a win, and a good one, over the Sacramento Kings last night at home, 97-83.
For all the talk we’ve been doing—”we” being myself and everybody else who covers this team night in and night out—I don’t think we’d considered that the answer to “What’s wrong with Marc Gasol?” was “He’s actually been slowly going insane for eight weeks” until last night. He started out missing shots again—similar to the San Antonio game Sunday night in which he was getting good looks at the basket and they were just rimming out—and in the first quarter he missed a 16-footer and had had enough:
The most “Marc Gasol” moment of the whole incident is when he rips the front of the jersey open, and then immediately realizes what he did and tries to stick the two sides of the tear back together. Not how it works, but a nice thought. He continued to play on with his jersey flapping in the breeze until the next timeout, when Kosta Koufos entered the game for him.
Ever since Gasol’s meltdown in the Detroit game, where he fouled out and just sat on the floor for a while, his mental state has been called into question. Last night was decidedly not evidence that everything is fine, but it was evidence that Gasol’s lack of intensity—his “checked-out-ness”—seems to be slowly subsiding and what’s coming in its place is an overwhelming frustration with himself and his lackluster play.
This is good and bad. It’s good because it means he cares. It’s bad because it means he’s playing with a lot of frustration, fouling sometimes after failing to make a play (in the style of Tony Allen), replacing the exuberant self-butt-slap with something more sinister—the rending of garments and a thousand-yard stare.
Someone asked Gasol about the jersey destruction in the postgame presser. Gasol just smiled, clearly sheepish, and said “That was my Darko moment. He was my man, and I miss him. I miss him a lot.”
Game Notes
Larry Kuzniewski
Kosta Koufos had one of his best nights ever off the Grizzlies’ bench.
➭ Kosta Koufos had the most rebounds he’s ever had coming off the bench for the Grizzlies (12) and played an all-around excellent game while backing up a Marc Gasol on the edge of some sort of mental break. He was everywhere last night, banging bodies with Grizzly Nemesis Reggie Evans and keeping him from accomplishing much, scoring as the roll man, setting picks, doing Kosta Koufos things. He may not be as good as Gasol (clearly he isn’t) but when he’s got a big chunk of minutes (and/or he is maybe halfway auditioning for his former coach George Karl) Koufos is such an excellent piece to have on this basketball team.
➭ Jeff Green had a really good night, even as he was inserted back into the starting lineup in place of the still-injured Tony Allen. Green played 33 minutes, was 6-11 from the floor (including 2-5 from 3pt. range) for 16 points, 4 rebounds, and 4 assists. Jeff Green may not have good games as often as it seems like he should—something that has been the case throughout his NBA career, of course, and something Griz fans should’ve known they were getting—but he does genuinely look like he’s starting to learn where he’s supposed to be when he’s on the floor with the first unit, and I don’t doubt that his knowledge is going a long way towards reducing some of those guys’ frustrations.
Also, he had another ridiculous dunk in transition. He’s good at those.
Green is still a very important piece of the Grizzlies’ postseason puzzle. If he can continue to show this sort of growth over the last seven games of the season and into the first round, they’re in a lot better shape (even if he’s part of the second unit) than otherwise.
➭ Jokes about insanity aside (although I’m no longer convinced they’re jokes; the jersey tear was deeply uncomfortable even though it was funny), Gasol had a decent game: his shot wasn’t falling (4-11 from the floor), so instead he switched into “facilitator” mode, and did a good job with it, to the tune of 11 rebounds and 6 assists in 27 minutes. With the game Koufos was having, Gasol wasn’t really necessary, even when Joerger put him back in to finish out the game. I probably would rather have seen him sit the rest of the 4th quarter out and chillax, given the circumstances, but Joerger loves putting the starters in at the end of the game, so that’s what happened.
I do think we should be keeping an eye on Gasol from here on out. Jokes aside, he seems to be playing basketball from kind of a dark place right now. Who knows if his baby daughter stopped sleeping, or what. (You want to know what’ll make a grown man tear his own clothes in anger? A tiny human experiencing a sleep regression.) But it’s been a while since Gasol had this kind of an edge, and was playing kind of poorly at the same time.
Larry Kuzniewski
I wish I had words for how much I dislike Reggie Evans. Which is the entire point of his career.
➭ In the standings, last night was a good night. The Toronto Raptors beat the Rockets, and the Grizzlies won, so the Griz reclaimed 2nd place in the West and the lead in the Southwest division. Given the two teams’ remaining schedules, I think the Grizzlies should hold on to win the division, but they’ll probably have to go 6-1 or 5-2 over the last seven to do it. I think they can, but given their seeming instability as of late, I’ve been wrong before.
Tweet of the Night
No explanation necessary.
Dead. “@BSO: So Fast… RT @Steve_OS: GASOL!! “@theScore: NWO 4 LIFE! http://t.co/La3tevTXpP pic.twitter.com/n6p9rTWnCO””
— Steve Danziger (@StevieDanziger) March 31, 2015
Up Next
Three days of glorious rest, followed by a rare home-and-home back to back that sees the Grizzlies taking on the Thunder Friday night and the Wizards Saturday night, both at FedExForum. Then three more days off and a home game against the Grizzlies Kryptonite All-Stars New Orleans Pelicans with divisional implications. Road games at the Jazz, Clippers, and Warriors follow, before the Grizzlies play their last game of the regular season at home against the Pacers on 4/15.
