- LARRY KUZNIEWSKI
- Rudy Gay took over the game to help the Griz get a much-needed win.
The Lead: With 12 minutes left to play, the Grizzlies seemed to be in the most precarious position they’ve faced all season. They were down four to a Denver Nuggets team that was both catching up with them in the playoff standings and on the verge of securing a tiebreaker by winning the regular-season series between the two teams.
They’d just suffered a potentially deflating and — more importantly — potentially serious injury to a key player, when Quincy Pondexter knocked knees with Wayne Ellington near the end of the third quarter and Pondexter had to be carried to the locker room.
And the poor offense that had sent the team tumbling from the ranks of legit contenders seemed to be getting worse still, with only 53 points on 34.8% shooting through three quarters.
Searching for something, Lionel Hollins sent out five players who had never seen the floor together before: Jerryd Bayless, Wayne Ellington, Darrell Arthur, Marreese Speights, and Hamed Haddadi.
“It was about trying to get some energy,” Hollins explained later. And it worked.
This unlikely lineup gave the team a big boost, going on a 15-9 run over the next 6:45 and transforming the energy in the building from low to near-playoff-level. (Big Hamed Haddadi dunks have a history of doing that.)
“We were able to energize the crowd and energize ourselves, because we were just playing in mud,” Hollins said. “We were just moping around.”
It started instantly with a 40-second sequence that tied the game: A Shane Battier Memorial Baseline Jumper from Speights. Arthur, playing the three, stealing the ball from Corey Brewer. And then Bayless finishing in transition with a dunk. After that, Bayless and Speights connected on a baseline alley-oop. Haddadi flushed one over Kenneth Faried. Arthur took advantage of his mismatch by posting Brewer and hitting a short baseline jumper. Ellington spotted up for a three.
It was a reminder that, as poor as the Grizzlies offensive execution has been of late, nearly as troubling has been absence of what has been the team’s trademark intensity. Offensive execution remains a big concern, but better and more consistent energy would alleviate at least some of it.
With the energy raised, a closing unit featuring three well-rested starters (Rudy Gay, Mike Conley, and Zach Randolph) with two holdovers (Jerryd Bayless and Wayne Ellington) peeled off a 10-0 run to put the game away.
