The Lead:
Three games against elite NBA teams. Three chances for the Grizzlies’ traditional post-oriented style to submit to trendier small-ball alignments. Three double-digit wins, the last two on national television. And after a weird, wooly, entertaining, and commanding win over the Knicks, the Grizzlies left the floor tonight with, for the first time in franchise history, the best record in the entire NBA.
What does it mean to be atop league-wide standings?
“Now what,” Lionel Hollins asked after the game. “Can we hold onto it tomorrow night? We’re going to get in [to Charlotte] at four in the morning. Can we rev it up … and get a win tomorrow night?”
The win over the previously unbeaten Knicks completed what has to be the best three-game regular-season stretch in franchise history.
“If we don’t win tomorrow, the game tonight doesn’t mean anything,” Marc Gasol said.
But don’t tell that to fans. The ones that showed up with homemade “I Don’t Bluff” T-shirts in honor of Randolph’s post-game comments about his skirmish with Thunder center Kendrick Perkins Wednesday night. Or the ones with who showed up adorned with Randolph’s less considered retort to Perkins: “I’ll Beat Yo Ass.”
Big-man corner in the locker room — Randolph, Marc Gasol, and Marreese Speights — was laughing about the shirts after the game, but Gasol latched onto the more family friendly variation. “’We Don’t Bluff City,’ that’s good,” Gasol said, blessing as slogan-worthy a rallying cry that might become the new “Grit and Grind.”
