Larry Kuzniewski
Courtney Lee has had an excellent training camp and preseason so far.
A ten-man rotation, big minutes for Mike Conley, Marc Gasol, and Courtney Lee, a tie at halftime, and maybe 33% effort from Zach Randolph: last night the Grizzlies defeated Maccabi Haifa of the Israeli Basketball Super League 97–84 in front of a sparse crowd at FedExForum. The Griz actually trailed most of the first half despite playing the starters (with Lee and Jeff Green at the wing spots) heavy minutes—perhaps a good indicator of the difference in effort level between the two teams, with Maccabi Haifa playing for pride and the Grizzlies playing for practice—but pulled away down the stretch in the fourth quarter while letting Jarnell Stokes, who was ill during the preseason opener Tuesday night, get his first on-court minutes of the season.
There’s not really a whole lot to say about this one, so I’ll say it briefly:
➭ Joerger was experimenting with bench lineups again. In the postgame presser I asked him whether the shortened rotation (only ten guys got real minutes before Joerger finally started putting in training camp guys in the fourth) was because he had his eye on certain player groupings. With Russ Smith out of commission with a turned ankle, it was an extended look at Beno Udrih, but Joerger said his main focus was seeing how Brandan Wright and JaMychal Green looked together in some of those 5-man units. I thought they were fine, but it’s really hard to judge how they’ll do against NBA competition from last night.
➭ I’m not sure why Maccabi Haifa was the international team scheduled. With other teams playing some bigger clubs from Europe, I’m not really sure what made Haifa the team to play, unless they were the only one available. Seems like there are even other, more well-known teams in the Israeli Basketball Super League (Maccabi Tel Aviv being the dominant force there). They certainly carried themselves well, and played a good game against a disinterested Griz squad, so it’s not an issue of professionalism—I’m more thinking in terms of box office draw and/or interest. No offense to Maccabi Haifa, because it’s cool that any international club came to Memphis to play, but I liked it better when the Griz played Real Madrid in preseason.
➭ Jarnell Stokes looked good. But… I would expect him to look good against Maccabi Haifa. Still waiting to see him in action against NBA players to gauge how his development is progressing, but I think Stokes is in real danger of being passed on the depth chart by JaMychal Green. There’s going to be a battle for that spot.
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Tweet of the Night
Most everyone was busy talking about some election thing that was happening (I thought we’d already declared Tony Allen to be Mayor For Life?) so Twitter was almost as sparsely-populated as FedExForum.
I would never claim this as the actual Tweet of the Night, but Chris Herrington and I had a back-and-forth “Israeli League/Bob Dylan Fantasy Basketball Team Name” competition and, well, we got a little carried away:
The best election night would be one where @HerringtonNBA and @FlyerGrizBlog do this til a winner is declared. pic.twitter.com/bDXUpWlSqH
— Justin Entzminger (@JBobMemphis) October 9, 2015
But, with most everyone else talking election (which was, y’know, actually important) last night, it’s the best I can do.
Up Next
On Monday, the Grizzlies play the Cleveland Cavaliers at the Ohio State arena in Columbus, Ohio. I’m guessing Mike Conley is just a little excited about that one.
