Tag: Houston Rockets

Larry Kuzniewski

Real live basketball happened last night! For at least 24 of 48 minutes!

It wasn’t pretty, but it got the job done: last night the Grizzlies pulled off an ugly, predictably sloppy win in their first preseason game over the Houston Rockets. It’s going to take some time for the Griz to be able to integrate their new parts into a coherent whole—we knew that already. What might have been a little surprising was how rough some of those parts looked (Matt Barnes, especially, but also Jeff Green with the starters and Courtney Lee as a “point guard” at the end of the second half), but it’s still early, and there’s plenty of time for those issues to work themselves out.

There were a few things worth noting during Tuesday’s game, though. Herewith, the first installment of Next Day Notes for the 2015-16 Grizzlies season:

Game Notes

➭ Jordan Adams was out still recovering from offseason knee surgery, and Jarnell Stokes was out because he was sick, leaving the other two of last year’s rookies to get some minutes: Russ Smith and JaMychal Green. I’ll talk some more about Russ later, but Green looked really solid in his minutes last night. He looks much more comfortable in the Grizzlies’ offense, he looks like he’s in better shape, and I’ve heard good things about him from more than one person with the team.

Last night I saw why. I think Green can insert himself into the frontcourt rotation and stay there. It’s just preseason, sure, but the way Green looked with just about every bench lineup (except the one that put up 12 points in the second quarter), I think it’s more of a “plausible” than merely “possible.”

➭ Russ Smith is fun to watch. In 21 minutes last night, he had 12 points despite going 2-8 from the floor, because he got to the line for 9 free throws and made 8 of them. Smith pushed the ball relentlessly last night, and was (rightfully) determined to prove he deserves to be the backup point guard this year.

The issue with Smith last year in the few NBA looks he got was that the “Russdiculous” switch was always on, and sometimes Smith got out of control and made mistakes. That’s still an issue, but last night Smith looked more composed (though the crazy speed and explosiveness are still there) and I thought he played very well.

Larry Kuzniewski

Can Jeff Green be a starter? Last night didn’t provide any answers.

➭ Both of these two guys were a part of my favorite bench unit of the whole night, and a lineup I think we’ll see again in the near future: Smith, Vince Carter, Jeff Green, JaMychal Green, and newcomer Brandan Wright. In the third quarter this lineup got an extended run and I liked what I saw from it: Wright and Carter have a well-established pick & roll chemistry from their days together in Dallas, Smith pushes the pace to an extent that allows (Jeff) Green to take advantage of his athleticism to make plays (and this lineup also allows him to defend the opponent’s 1 or 2 spot, or at least it did last night, and I think Green is a much better defender when he’s guarding a guard and not a forward), and JaMychal Green fills the “big guy getting rebounds” role nicely finding gaps around Wright around the basket and hoisting the occasional 8-to-10-footer at the end of the shot clock.

It’s a bench unit that had chemistry together, something the Grizzlies didn’t always have last year, and when they did, it usually involved Kosta Koufos, who isn’t around anymore to anchor the front line of the second unit. Clearly that 5-man unit from last night is going to need to get a lot more time together before we really know anything about them, but I thought last night was an encouraging sign for a unit that could conceivably get a great deal of time together throughout the season.

Haiku Hot Take

Should Jeff get the start?
The debates will rage. I say:
Dance with who brung you.

Tweet of the night

This one from Ben Brown certainly made me laugh the hardest:

You won’t believe what happened to the man who ate McDonald’s every day for three months. …Marcus Thorton ate him.

— Ben Brown (@BenTBrown) October 7, 2015

But if you’re looking for something a little more uplifting in nature, it could also be this one from ESPN’s Kevin Pelton:

I would be OK canceling the fourth quarter of Rockets-Grizzlies in favor of a Corey Brewer-Russ Smith footrace.

— Kevin Pelton (@kpelton) October 7, 2015

Larry Kuzniewski

Up Next

The Grizzlies’ next preseason game is Thursday night against Maccabi Haifa, a team from the Israeli Basketball Super League (where they finished with a 17-16 record last year, I might add). I don’t expect it to be much of a contest, not in the way some of the other NBA teams playing international clubs have faced a challenge.

That means we’ll probably see more minutes out of the end-of-the-bench guys: Ryan Hollins (who I presume only played 14 minutes against Houston because Jarnell Stokes was in a suit), Yakhouba Diawara, Michael Holyfield, et al. I’m fine with that. All those guys, since I find it exceedingly unlikely that the Grizzlies are going to carry any of them into the regular season, are going to need time to audition for scouts and maybe get picked up somewhere else down the line. That’s part of the preseason too.

I’m not sure why the Grizzlies are playing Maccabi Haifa—it’s a bit like the Tigers playing a middle-of-the-pack high school team—but they are, so we’ll cover it.

Larry Kuzniewski

Can Jeff Green prove he fits in with the Grizzlies’ starting unit?

Tonight’s the night: a real Grizzlies basketball game against a real other team in a real arena in front of actual people. (And yes, to preclude the jokes, for this purpose, Thursday’s game against Maccabi Haifa also qualifies as a “real other team.”) The NBA preseason is upon us, and tonight brings us a Southwest Division matchup that is actually interesting; to the extent that the first game of the preseason can tell us anything about the season ahead, this one should actually be revealing.

“Layup Line,” for what it’s worth, is a random list of thoughts concerning an upcoming game. The part of the warmup that’s mostly just goofing around. A preview, but in the most laid-back possible way. Something I’m trying out this preseason.

Here are some things to pay attention to in tonight’s Grizzlies/Rockets game:

➭ How do the hurt guys look? Beno Udrih is still on the mend from offseason surgery, and Vince Carter came into last year with a hitch in his step that he was never quite able to get rid of. That’s something the Grizzlies would do well to avoid this year: having to depend on guys who aren’t 100% playing their way back into shape over the course of the season.

I’m not expecting anyone to be in mid-season form tomorrow night. After all, it was just last week at media day when Dave Joerger said the team’s P3 injury scanning data showed that “some of our guys aren’t in trememdous shape.” But, y’know, if somebody can’t run, or looks like they added 30 pounds of Häagen-Dazs to their prerequisite “20 pounds of muscle,” that’s going to be a problem, for the young guys just as much as the old guys. Seeing what the guys look like running the floor for the first time is always revelatory.

➭ Russ Smith, International Man of Mystery Russ Smith had a great Summer League performance, in which he appeared to be a much more fully-rounded point guard than he’d been during the season, when (as John Hollinger put it at media day) “the Russdiculous switch was always on.” If he can translate that performance into a sustained, composed performance at the NBA level, Smith may challenge Beno Udrih (who, as mentioned above, is recovering from a surgery) for backup point guard minutes, especially early on as Udrih works his way back into playing shape.

I don’t expect Smith to be a major part of the Grizzlies’ rotation this season, but I don’t think he has to—I just think he has to show that he can be that in a couple of years, and contribute in spots when he’s needed. I’m hoping he gets enough run in the preseason to see what kind of Russdiculous is on the roster this season, and that starts against Houston.

Larry Kuzniewski

How well is Beno Udrih recovering from surgery?

➭ Are the Rockets going to be better? The Rockets made the Western Conference Finals last year before falling to the Warriors. Now that they’ve added Ty Lawson (after his fall from grace in Denver), all eyes are on Houston to see whether they can continue to develop into a perennial West power or whether they will take a step back trying to integrate Lawson into a mix that seems to be working pretty well. The Rockets needed a really lackluster second half from the Grizzlies to win the division last year, but they won it fair and square, and that means they’re in the Grizzlies’ way this season. An early look at Houston could be an early glance at what the Southwest’s balance of power will be this year (until the Spurs show up and Force Choke the rest of the competition, anyway).

➭ Can Jeff Green start on this team without ruining everything? This was the subject of fierce debate for most of the stretch run and playoffs last year—does Jeff Green actually fit on this team, or is the situation here the same as it’s been everywhere else for Green: that he’s a “good player” who seems to be a net negative when he’s on the floor with most of the 5-man units in which he finds himself on a regular basis?

One of the most tired Media Day tropes is that “Player X just needs a full training camp” to be able to correct all of the issues he had last year after being traded. Like most good clichés, though, it’s a cliché because it has a basis in reality: it really is hard for these guys to show up in a new town on a team that runs a totally different scheme and just magically fit in with the style of play. My assumption is that it’s even harder when that new team is a group like the Grizzlies who have been together for a long time.

But that’s the thing we’re going to find out pretty quickly—I think within the first 20-25 games of the season. Can Jeff Green start on this team without making the team worse in some meaningful capacity? We really don’t know. This will be the test, and assuming he starts tonight—and I’m assuming he’s starting until proven otherwise—it starts against the Rockets tonight. Green has got to fit in well with the Grizzlies’ starting unit, or he’s going to be re-relegated to bench duties.

➭ Are the snacks for the media going to be any good this year? OK, maybe I’m the only one thinking about this one.