After hopping onto the radio with Chris Vernon immediately after the game and having to deal with family duties afterward, I’m little late getting this up, but here’s my notebook from today’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day game down at FedExForum:
The Lead: Derrick Rose was a late scratch after re-aggravating his turf toe injury, which meant each team was without its top star in this game. As great as Rose is, he isn’t the primary reason the Bulls have been dominant defensively. And for whatever reason — the early start time on the road? — the Bulls weren’t themselves in the first half. Not facing the kind of intense defensive pressure they saw coming out of the gate in that earlier meeting in Chicago, the Grizzlies were able to get into a good groove early, shooting 69% and taking a 20-point lead into the break despite 11 first-half turnovers.
The Bulls did finally turn up their defensive intensity in the third quarter behind frontcourt reserves Taj Gibson and Omer Asik, pressing full court and collapsing into the paint to force turnovers and mid-range jumpers, respectively. This defensive tornado got the Grizzlies out of their game and spurred a 26-8 Bulls run, turning a 27-point Grizzlies lead early into the third quarter into a 9-point Grizzlies lead early in the fourth.
But, in the best collective game so far this season from Mike Conley, Rudy Gay, and Marc Gasol, it was this remaining trio from the team’s four-man core that built and then rebuilt a big lead at the end of each half.
In the second quarter, the Grizzlies were leading by 7 points coming out of a timeout with 4:24 left in the half and finished on a 16-3 run in which Conley, Gay, and Gasol were involved in every basket: Conley began the run with a three-pointer off a Gay assist, got a steal on the sideline and raced down to put back a Tony Allen miss in transition, found Gasol at the rim for a layup. Gay had the sequence of the game, blocking Joakim Noah at the rim and then driving past Noah for a dunk on the other end, and then ending the run with a corner three. Gasol set up Marreese Speights for a dunk off a high-post feed, the only basket in the run not scored by one of the three.
And they were at it again in the fourth. Gay checked back in to join Conley and Gasol at the 8:00 mark, with the Griz lead still teetering at 9. From there, the Grizzlies went on a 17-5 run over the next five and a half minutes before the benches emptied. In that run, Conley assisted on two Gasol jumpers, went coast-to-coast off a steal. Gay scored five and assisted on a Dante Cunningham basket to finish off the run. Gasol added a third jumper and a couple of blocks.
Even with Rose out, this was a good win for the Grizzlies, who have now won three games in a row and have to be happy to be sitting at 6-6 despite their injuries, roster upheaval and early schedule heavy with elite opponents. And what we’re learning is similar to what we learned when first O.J. Mayo and then Rudy Gay missed stretches last season and the team kept winning: The Grizzlies have a lot of good players. It’s hard to imagination they could get back to where they were last post-season without Randolph, but if those left behind play up to their potential, the Grizzlies are good enough to compete for a playoff spot without him — and much more than that if and when Randolph is back in the line-up and effective.
