- LARRY KUZNIEWSKI
- Darrell Arthut
An unusually eventful Grizzlies season has been even bumpier over the past week, with the most intensely enjoyable home game of the season — Friday’s overtime win over the San Antonio Spurs — followed by two terribly dispiriting non-performances: A big loss in Dallas the following night and a 99-73 drubbing at FedExForum Monday night at the hands of the Los Angeles Clippers, the team that had ended the Grizzlies season on their previous appearance in the building. The 26-point scoring deficit against the Clippers marked the Grizzlies’ worst defeat of the season and the 30.3% shooting in that game was the lowest for a home game in franchise history.
There were excuses for both bad losses, if you want them. The Dallas game seemed like a classic schedule loss, the second night of a back-to-back on the road after a draining overtime win. Monday night, the team was playing without leading scorer Rudy Gay, out of town for a family funeral. Gay’s loss, on top of the loss of his own back-up, Quincy Pondexter, had the Grizzlies playing little-used and unconventional lineups all night, and against the league’s deepest team. The Clippers, of course, were playing without their best player, point guard Chris Paul.
If the Grizzlies have a good showing — win or lose — in a Wednesday night re-match with the Spurs in San Antonio, these losses can maintain their asterisks. A bad showing Wednesday night — a third in a row — and alarm bells will sound.
But while the Grizzlies’ contender status and season trajectory hang yet still in the balance — pending the next game, the next Rudy Gay trade rumor, or the next Lionel Hollins radio interview — let’s take a quiet moment amid the clamor to recognize two players on the roster undercard doing good things now that promise even more going forward.
Darrell Arthur missed all last season with an Achilles injury and then missed the start of this season with a more minor leg injury. Upon his return, it’s taken him a few weeks to improve his conditioning and timing back to something resembling his pre-injury form. But in recent weeks he’s shown why many — myself included, not to mention new Grizzlies exec John Hollinger — thought he was the team’s best reserve player and one of the league’s better back-up forwards before the injury. Arthur’s minutes and production are both up in January — his rebounding rate up, his turnover rate down, his jumper starting to fall more.
Arthur’s surface stats don’t look like much — 7 points, 3 rebounds a game — but watch him closely and you’ll regularly see Arthur make impactful defensive plays that don’t register in the box score: Blowing up pick-and-rolls. Switching onto and containing perimeter ballhandlers. Cutting off drives and setting up teammates’ steals. Racing down in transition to disrupt a fastbreak.
