Tag: Clippers

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Beyond the Arc Sports

Game 6: Grizzlies 118, Clippers 105 — How a Resurrection Really Feels

CREDIT: LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

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When it comes to Zach Randolph, in Memphis, in the playoffs, sometimes “hero ball” takes on a different meaning. Sometimes it means wrestling on the floor with a Kia pitchman and dunk-crazy ingenue power forward. Sometimes it means responding a minute later with a hoop-and-harm against the same opponent, which sends you careening into baseline photographers and results in your crazy teammate standing over you, flexing his arms, and then getting up to pound your chest in front of the opposing bench. Sometimes it means exhorting the home crowd while the same crazy teammate pops your jersey for you, all after a second technical foul sends you to the locker room, but with 23 points on a nifty 8-12 shooting and a series-ending, revenge-securing victory in your back pocket.

Welcome to a “grit-and-grind” Grizzlies playoff run. It can get a little rough.

Friday night at FedExForum — bleeding into Saturday morning — was part exorcism, part resurrection. Evil spirits lingering from last spring’s crushing bookend losses to the same Los Angeles Clippers team were put away. A team down 0-2 to start the series won four games in a row to close it out. For the first time in league history, a team came back from 0-2 to win four straight games all by double digits.

But it was also a resurrection for Randolph. After the All-Star break, Randolph looked pretty ordinary, with his 43 percent shooting and inability to string together double-doubles in his accustomed fashion. After two games in Los Angeles, Randolph was averaging 13 points and 6 rebounds and there were a string of presumptive eulogies for his Memphis career. Over the final four games of the series: 25 points and 9 rebounds a game on 57 percent shooting. In these four wins, the Grizzlies outscored the Clippers by an average of 18 points a game when Randolph was on the floor.

Memphis’ love for Randolph had never really faded. He was always just a blue collar player in the blue collar town. But these four games stoked the flames. A loud “Z-BO” chant as the incorrigible favorite son exited, with 1:57 to play and the Grizzlies up by 15 points, was the hottest those flames have burned since the spring of 2011, when Randolph forced a Game 7 against Thunder, against whom a rematch now awaits.

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Beyond the Arc Sports

Griz-Clippers Game 6 Preview: Invitation to an Exorcism

CREDIT: LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

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An exorcism is being held at FedExForum tonight, and 18,119 are invited.

Things are suddenly trending very well for the Grizzlies in this series, who have the Clippers reeling — on the verge of elimination, on the road, with their second-best player limited if available at all.

But history is too fresh for too many of these Grizzlies players — and certainly their coach — for overconfidence to be a concern. They remember the fourth-quarter collapse in Game 1 last spring. They remember the Game 7 quagmire. They remember losing to this team at FedExForum a few weeks ago, with homecourt likely on the line.

So much work toward this has been done. After losing six of seven games to the Clippers dating back to that Game 7 last spring, the Grizzlies have now won three in a row, all by double figures. After losing closing quarters badly last spring, they’ve won four fourths in a row. After living in fear of Eric Bledsoe, they’ve quieted the beast since his destructive fourth quarter in Game 1.

But the completion of the deed yet awaits.

Sure, it could happen another way. The Clippers could do what the Grizzlies did last season — win a road Game 6 to force a home Game 7. And then the Grizzlies could rip out their hearts on their home floor to complete the mirror image. That would be sweet — but not worth the risk. They want to do this at home, in front of 18,119 “We Don’t Bluff” towels.

What could stand in the way?

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Beyond the Arc Sports

In-Between Games: Griffin’s Ankle, Z-Bo’s Flashback, and Really Missing Reggie Evans

CREDIT: LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

Zach Randolph vs. Blake Griffin was a match-up advantage for the Grizzlies, even before Griffins recent ankle injury.

  • LARRY KUZNIEWSKI
  • Zach Randolph vs. Blake Griffin was a match-up advantage for the Grizzlies, even before Griffin’s recent ankle injury.

The power forward match-up between All-Stars Blake Griffin and Zach Randolph had already shaded into the Grizzlies’ favor ahead of Tuesday night’s Game 5 in Los Angeles, but that game was something of a tipping point.

Griffin, struggling with a high ankle sprain suffered in practice the day before, scored four points on 2-7 shooting in fewer than 20 minutes of play before finally bowing out for good in the third quarter. Randolph, meanwhile, notched a team-high 25 points and 11 rebounds, including scoring 10 points on 5-6 shooting, with an assist, in the fourth quarter.

Randolph has generally played well — and increasingly so — the whole series, despite subpar rebounding in Game 1 and foul trouble in both early Los Angeles games. But his fourth quarter in Game 5 was something a little different. With Marc Gasol on the bench and the Grizzlies searching for offense to keep a Clippers’ comeback attempt at bay, Randolph routinely set up on the right block — but catching and facing pretty far on the right wing — and playing in isolation. He scored three of his five baskets with one-on-one moves from this space — a running hook and then a baseline floater, both over DeAndre Jordan, followed by a stepback jumper over Lamar Odom — and got his assist there too, hitting Tayshaun Prince on a cut down the lane.

It was a flashback to the spring of 2011, when Randolph took over in the fourth quarter of consecutive Game 6s in similar right wing/isolation fashion. Randolph has played well this post-season, but for better or worse, he hadn’t really played like that.

We tend to misremember Randolph’s spring of 2011. The great games — like those dominant sixth games — were so searing that the rough games (especially when Oklahoma City clamped down, leading to Randolph shooting 22-69, or 32%, in Games 2-5) fade away.

Though five games is a terribly small set of information, Randolph’s production, in a lot of ways, has actually been better than in 2011, and certainly more consistent. While Randolph’s rebounding (a little bit up offensively, a little bit down defensively) has mostly held steady, as it pretty much has through the ups and downs of the past two seasons, his scoring has been significantly more efficient, with his 53% true-shooting percentage from the 2011 post-season up to 58% through five games so far this spring.

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Beyond the Arc Sports

Game 5: Grizzlies 103, Clippers 93 — One Game Away

A 35-point explosion from Chris Paul was mitigated by an injury-impacted performance from Blake Griffin as the Grizzlies held on for a 103-93 win in Los Angeles Tuesday night. The Grizzlies now take a 3-2 lead over the Clippers and will have a chance to close out the series in Memphis Friday night.

The Grizzlies led by eight points entering the fourth quarter, but with Marc Gasol sitting most of the quarter with five fouls and Griffin gone for good with an ankle sprain that limited him to 20 minutes on the night, the match-ups took on an unfamiliar look.

The Clippers went small, with Paul flanked by fellow guards Eric Bledsoe and Jamal Crawford and small forward Matt Barnes shifting over the power forward. The Grizzlies responded, finally returning to the perimeter defense match-ups that had been so successful in Memphis but which the team had oddly avoided for most of this game: Quincy Pondexter on Paul, Mike Conley on Bledsoe, and Tony Allen on Crawford.

On the other end, it was forwards Zach Randolph and Tayshaun Prince who took the team home. Randolph has been good for most of the series, and surprisingly so at home. But this was different. This was a flashback to the spring of 2011, when Randolph polished off playoff games by setting up on the right block/wing and scoring repeatedly. Randolph scored 10 points on 5-6 shooting in the quarter.

But it was Prince, perhaps poetically, given the still existent catcalls about the Grizzlies missing Rudy Gay’s late-game scoring, and whose offense had been MIA until Game 4, who ultimately kept a Clippers’ comeback at bay. Three times, in the last five minutes, when the Clippers threatened, it was Prince who answered: A 21-footer when the Clippers drew to within seven. Then a cut and lay-up off a Randolph feed when the Clippers had pulled to within six. Finally, the clincher — a 27-foot elbow-extended three-pointer at the 1:29 mark, when the Clippers had cut the Grizzlies lead to five and the outcome seemed legitimately in doubt.

While Paul was searching for help — the other four Clipper starters combined for 17 points, and only sixth-man Jamal Crawford joined Paul in double-digits with 15 — the Grizzlies had four starters score between 15 and 25 and again got a strong joint effort from Randolph and Gasol, who have been contained only by fouls in this series.

Chris Paul will undoubtedly be ready for Friday night, back at FedExForum. But the rest of his team has questions to answer with their season on the line.

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Beyond the Arc Sports

Griz-Clippers Game 5 Preview: Ten Takes

Defending Chris Paul will be a key for tonights crucial Game 5.

  • LARRY KUZNIEWSKI
  • Defending Chris Paul will be a key for tonight’s crucial Game 5.

A high-stakes Game 5 between the Grizzlies and Clippers tips tonight at 9:30 p.m., Memphis time. Here are 10 takes ahead of the action:

1. Homecourt vs. Trendlines: The central mystery of Game 5 is whether what we’ve seen so far is simply about homecourt advantage or whether the series is evolving in a more linear way. The Clipper optimist would say both teams have merely held serve on their home floor. That these two teams are fairly evenly matched, that homecourt has been the tipping point, and that now the Clippers have a 2-to-1 homecourt advantage in a best 2-of-3 series. Could be.

But the Grizzlies optimist would counter that what we’ve really seen is a solid, direct trend, with the Grizzlies growing stronger each game. Consider these trendlines:

Outcome:
Game 1 — Clippers +21
Game 2 — Clippers +2
Game 3 — Grizzlies +12
Game 4 — Grizzlies +21

Rebound Differential/Second-Chance Points:
Game 1 — Clippers +24/+20
Game 2 — Clippers +2/Grizzlies +4
Game 3 — Grizzlies +12/+18
Game 4 — Grizzlies +17/+20

Marc Gasol/Zach Randolph Production:
Game 1 — 29-6-8
Game 2 — 30-15-2
Game 3 — 43-19-4
Game 4 — 48-22-6

2. First Game Fluke?: An extra bit of evidence to the “trendline” theory of this series: Game 1, increasingly, looks like an outlier, not in terms of performance, which is impossible to predict, but in terms of roster usage on the Grizzlies part.

“Foul trouble” — which is not predictable — played a role in the Grizzlies’ rotations, but impacted the two teams equally in the Zach Randolph/Blake Griffin match-up, where each played 25 minutes. Elsewhere, the Grizzlies did things in that game that weren’t totally explained by fouls and that haven’t and almost certainly won’t be repeated: Austin Daye getting first-quarter minutes. Keyon Dooling playing more minutes (18) than Tony Allen (17). Jerryd Bayless’ good shooting prompting 30 minutes of court-time even though his defense was problematic and the team was a -11 when he was on the floor.

Quite literally, the Grizzlies team that played in Game 1 is not the same team that’s played since or will play in Game 5. Unfortunately for the Grizzlies, that game counted.

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Beyond the Arc Sports

Game 4: Grizzlies 104, Clippers 83 — Gasol & Randolph Tag Team Secures a Game 6

CREDIT: LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

The Grizzlies evened up the series behind a dominant performance from their frontcourt stars.

  • LARRY KUZNIEWSKI
  • The Grizzlies evened up the series behind a dominant performance from their frontcourt stars.

The big trains from Memphis kept rumbling along Saturday afternoon at FedExForum, as Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol combined for 48 points and 22 rebounds on 61 percent shooting to lead the Grizzlies to a 104-83 victory over the Clippers that sends this series back to Los Angles tied at two games apiece.

Fitting their city’s pro wrestling heritage, this was a classic tag-team affair.

Randolph got it going early — in more ways than one. Randolph’s 16 points on 8-11 shooting in the first half came with 10 attempts at the rim. How has Randolph’s game transformed since his middling production in Los Angeles? Randolph credits the home-court eruption to “getting the ball in the right spots, being aggressive, going a little faster instead of waiting for the double team.”

Gasol echoed this, saying the team had to get Randolph the ball in the right spots instead of getting it to him in isolation situations and asking Randolph to simply go get shots.

In the second half, the team made a clear choice to emphasize Gasol, and he responded with 18 points and 6 rebounds on 7-9 shooting in the half, all of his second-half shots, in contrast to Randolph, coming on short or mid-range jumpers. Gasol’s three quick makes early in the third quarter helped keep the Clippers from building any kind of lead, and Gasol hit a couple of back-breakers later in the quarter: A 23-foot catch-and-shoot make off a Tayshaun Prince in-bounds pass, with .6 seconds on the shot clock, to tie the game at 60, and then a 13-foot baseline jumper off a Tony Wroten feed with .2 seconds on the clock to end the quarter and give the Grizzlies a two-possession lead going into the fourth. What does Gasol present to opposing defenders?, Randolph was asked later. “Trouble,” he responded.

And it wasn’t just Randolph and Gasol’s scoring. They combined for more offensive rebounds (seven) than the Clippers’ entire team (five). The most important sequence in the game might have come midway through the fourth, when Gasol contested Blake Griffin at the rim, forcing a miss, securing the defensive rebound, and starting a fastbreak that ended with a drop-down assist from Randolph to Tony Allen, who finished at the basket despite a Griffin foul and hit again from the line. The Grizzlies were up 10 at the time and the sequence made it a 13-point game with 7:14 to play instead of the 8-point game it might have been if Griffin had converted over Gasol. From that moment, the Grizzlies blew the game open.

The Grizzlies have now outscored the Clippers 380-370 through four games, but the series is tied and the Clippers maintain a homecourt advantage. For the Grizzlies, this may be a painful reminder of last spring, when the Grizzlies outscored the Clippers across seven games but were sent packing because of the failure to close out the close ones. Though Chris Paul’s fourth-quarter magic from Game 2 still has the series even, the Clippers have to be concerned about their downward trend. From their perspective, here’s how the series has gone: +21, +2, -12, -21.

“We haven’t accomplished anything yet,” Gasol said after the game. “But we’ve gotten a little bit better every game, and we have to continue to do that.”

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Beyond the Arc Sports

Game 3: Grizzlies 94, Clippers 82 — Big Trains From Memphis Get Chugging

CREDIT: LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol tag-teamed the Clippers to lead the Grizzlies to their first win in the series..

  • LARRY KUZNIEWSKI
  • Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol tag-teamed the Clippers to lead the Grizzlies’ to their first win in the series..

The Grizzlies saved Saturday.

Needing three victories over the final four games, winning this series against the Los Angeles Clippers is still a heavy lift. But, for now, the Grizzlies have ensured that playoff weekend in Memphis, for a while at least, can be a festive one.

Around water coolers Friday morning. At bars Friday night. At the farmer’s market on Saturday and at lunch spots up and down Beale and Main ahead of Saturday’s 3:30 tip: Now the mood will be more anticipation than anxiety. The buzz you’ll hear for the next day-and-a-half around the city will be one of excitement instead of dread. Whatever else happens in the series, the Grizzlies performed a civic mitzvah Thursday night.

How did it happen, this 94-82 victory? In a classic Grizzlies grind-it-out game. With perimeter defense and offensive rebounding and two hefty All-Stars scoring in the post, high and low.

Zach Randolph had a flashback game. You could see it in the first quarter, when he pinned seven-foot Clippers center DeAndre Jordan early in the shot clock, right under the rim, and finished over him. You could see it in the third quarter, when he rose — was it a foot? — off the ground to corral an offensive rebound with one big mitt and flipped the ball back in. It was 27 points and 11 rebounds on 9-18 shooting, and if Randolph got a couple of attempts swatted, it was still the kind of performance some fans were surely doubting they’d ever see again.

Randolph’s back line buddy, Marc Gasol, was there with him. Rather than running so many plays through Gasol on the low block against Jordan, as had been the case in Los Angeles, the Grizzlies reasserted Gasol (16 and 8) in the high post, where he abused Jordan with jumpers — 4-7 from mid-range — and restored the vertical balance to the Grizzlies’ post-based offense. (Randolph was 8-14 at the rim.)

They shared the podium afterward, in victory, a moment for fans to savor given the uncertain future. “This is our game,” Randolph said.

From the Clippers’ side, coach Vinny Del Negro repeated the word “rebounding” like a mantra in his post-game presser. After destroying the Grizzlies on the boards in Game 1, the pendulum swung here, the Grizzlies besting the Clippers 17-5 on the offensive boards despite both teams shooting 39% from the floor. Randolph, with six, out-rebounded the entire Clippers team on the offensive glass.

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Beyond the Arc Sports

Griz-Clips Game 3 Preview: Lessons from Los Angeles

CREDIT: LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

Its that time again.

The playoffs move from Flophouse to Grindhouse tonight, with an 8:30 tip down at FedExForum. A few things on my mind as the series moves to Memphis:

Fourth Quarter Contrast and the Unremarkable Bench Disparity: I don’t have much in the way of expectation in terms of performance or outcome tonight, but I do in terms of strategy. Based on adjustments between Games 1 and 2 and his subsequent public statements, it seems like Lionel Hollins has come around to a notion that, frankly, I wrote and talked about in the run-up to the series: That, against the Clippers, the Grizzlies likely need to tighten their rotation, lean more on the starters, and be careful with early fourth-quarter lineups.

While the details are different between Games 1 and 2 in terms of foul issues and player performance, both games ended up only one bucket apart through three quarters. In Game 1, the Clippers lead 75-69 to start the fourth. In Game 2, the Clippers lead 75-71. After that, things went very differently, with the Clippers running over the Grizzlies 37-22 in Game 1, and the Grizzlies battling to a 20-18 advantage in Game 2.

What was different? Let’s start with who was on the floor. In both games, the Clippers started with the same full bench unit, which happens to include what might arguably be three of their five best players this season — Eric Bledsoe, Jamal Crawford, and Matt Barnes.

In Game 1, the Grizzlies countered with a “throwing-stuff-against-the-wall” small-ball lineup, with Tayshaun Prince sliding to the four and three bench players on the perimeter. Marc Gasol was the only starter playing his regular position. This lineup made a couple of shots early to cut the deficit to one, but couldn’t handle the Clippers on the boards or Eric Bledsoe in the backcourt and by the time the Grizzlies started coming back with more starters the game was already beginning to slip away.

In Game 2, by contrast, The Grizzlies began the quarter with a more conventional two-starter lineup (Mike Conley and Zach Randolph) but came in more quickly with other starters when signs of trouble emerged.

On the whole, the biggest difference between the two fourth quarters for the Grizzlies came in the backcourt, where starters Conley and Tony Allen combined for roughly five minutes in Game 1 but played 23 of 24 minutes in Game 2. Perhaps this had something to do with the enormous defensive disparity between the two games.

On the Clippers end, the biggest disparity was the odd gift from Clippers’ coach Vinny Del Negro, who had played proven fourth-quarter Griz killer Eric Bledsoe for the full-fourth quarter in Game 1 and but then yanked him after five minutes in Game 2.

The good news for the Grizzlies is you can probably expect their Game 2 adjustments to carry over. The bad news is that Del Negro may not be so reliable.

In general, I shrug off worry about the bench disparity between the two teams, with the Clippers’ bench outscoring their Grizzlies’ counterparts 79-51 through two games. It is what it is at this point. The Clippers are built like this. Their strong bench isn’t just a luxury. Reserve guards Bledsoe and Crawford are more dynamic than veteran starter Billups. Starting center DeAndre Jordan is such a deplorable foul shooter that he can’t be trusted in the fourth quarter. All season, reserve small forward Barnes has outplayed starter Caron Butler. The Clippers best lineups, on the season, have tended to be bench-heavy lineups. While the Grizzlies would love to get better, more consistent production from the likes of Jerryd Bayless, Quincy Pondexter, Darrell Arthur, or Ed Davis, they don’t need to play the Clippers even bench vs. bench. Basketball isn’t played that way. The only match-up that matters is roster vs. roster.

The question for the Grizzlies is if the starters can play heavy minutes — and have their rest staggered effectively — without wearing down. Conley and Gasol played 44 minutes each in Game 2. That’s probably a bit much to expect. But with the season on the line and no back-to-backs in the playoffs, there’s no reason — beyond poor play or extreme foul problems — starters can’t play 38-40 a game.

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Game 2: Clippers 93, Grizzlies 91 — A Gut Punch of Encouragement

CREDIT: LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

Mike Conley rebounded with a massive Game 2.

Losing a playoff game on a last-second shot is supposed to be a gut punch. But after how demoralizing the Grizzlies’ loss to the Clippers was in Game 1 of this series, last night’s Game 2 loss — with “Point God” Chris Paul hitting a tough, off-balance, go-ahead runner off glass, over the tight defense of Tony Allen, with .1 seconds on the clock — felt as restorative as it did disappointing from a Grizzlies perspective.

The Grizzlies now return home for Games 3 and 4 with a sense of missed opportunity but also with a renewed sense — and, perhaps just as importantly, a renewed sense among restless fans — that they can battle this Clippers team: That they can win a fourth quarter (20-18). That their league-best three-point defense, post-trade, can put the squeeze on the Clippers’ deep array of shooters (2-15). That Mike Conley’s tentative, out-of-his-depth play from Game 1 was not a terminal condition (a bravura 28 points and 9 assists in 44 minutes). That maybe Clippers’ coach Vinny Del Negro doesn’t have it all figured out (Eric Bledsoe played fewer than 14 minutes). And that maybe Lionel Hollins has figured out a few things (No Austin Daye, more Tony Allen, a tighter rotation that relied more on starters).

In a loss like this, frustrations are many, starting at the foul line: The Grizzlies missed 11 free throws (23-34) in a two-point loss, and then let Matt Barnes and Bledsoe have multiple uncontested fourth-quarter dunks where hard fouls were called for. Jamal Crawford scored 10 quick in the second quarter as Tony Allen first watched from the bench and then from the scorer’s table, waiting to check in. “Foul trouble” limited Zach Randolph’s second-half minutes just as he was finally heating up. Randolph had 7 points and 7 rebounds in 14 second-half minutes. In retrospect, it’s hard to fault Lionel Hollins for pulling Randolph after he got his fifth foul — down six with 4:34 to go. Darrell Arthur made two big plays in Randolph’s stead down the stretch, helping the Grizzlies tie it up, though Arthur’s recent history certainly didn’t suggest this could have been expected. Might Ed Davis — a superior shot-blocker who was benched after a couple of first-half miscues — have contested the final shot better than Arthur? Perhaps, but that’s nitpicking.

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Beyond the Arc Sports

In-Between Games: What Went Wrong (and Right) in Griz-Clips Game 1 and What Lies Ahead

CREDIT: LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

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Not being in Los Angeles for the opening two games of this first-round playoff series between the Grizzlies and Clippers and with only a one-day break in-between the first two games, I can’t find much reason to separate a reaction to Game 1 and a preview of Game 2. So, I’ll let this scattershot series of observations stand in for both:

Coming into the series, the Clippers already owned discernible advantages in terms of athleticism, depth, and shooting, and they pressed all three last night in Los Angeles until the Grizzlies finally broke, yielding a 112-91 defeat to a Clippers team that has now beaten them in five of the past six meetings between the two teams.

In theory, the Grizzlies should be able to mitigate the Clippers’ roster advantages with the league’s best perimeter defense, the league’s second-best rebounding team, and, arguably, the front-court tandem that boasts the league’s best mix of skill and brawn.

Instead, Clippers guards and small forwards shot 62%, including 39% from three-point range. The Grizzlies got demolished on the boards, where the Grizzlies were doubled-up (47-23) and allowed the Clippers to corral 42% of their own misses. The Grizzlies offensive rebound rate of 31.0 was second best in the NBA in the regular season. In Game 1, they secured barely more than 10 percent of their misses. As for the third component, Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph weren’t terrible offensively — 29 points on 10-22 shooting, with 8 assists — but it wasn’t nearly enough. And they combined for a shocking six rebounds in 45 minutes of play.

The 21-point final deficit is in some ways misleading and in other ways a more honest expression of the game than the tighter differential that separated these teams for most of the contest.