Tag: Mavericks

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Beyond the Arc Sports

Postgame Notebook: Grizzlies 90, Mavericks 84 — Unleashing the Beast

CREDIT: LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph went large and the team defense took over in a big comeback win.

  • LARRY KUZNIEWSKI
  • Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph went large and the team defense took over in a big comeback win.

The Lead: After seeing their normally elite defense slide some in the immediate aftermath of the Rudy Gay trade, the Grizzlies have come out of the All-Star break in ferocious form. In all five games since the break, there’s been a quarter where they’ve held the opposition to 15 or fewer points: Twelve in the second against the Pistons. Fourteen in the first against the Raptors. Fifteen in the third against the Magic. Thirteen in the third against the Nets.

Tonight? How about five points in the third quarter for the Mavericks?

But it was even more than that. From the mid-second quarter until late in the third, the Grizzlies’ team defense reached beyond the normal threshold, morphing into some kind of wild, seething, pulsating beast. Flying out at shooters, darting to defensive boards, handcuffing ballhandlers, snatching and pestering all over the floor.

The second-quarter ended on a 16-4 run in the final five minutes that included six Dallas turnovers, five of those caused by Griz steals and the other an out of bounds violation spurred by defensive pressure.

Coming out for the third, the Grizzlies held the Mavericks completely scoreless for more than eight minutes and without a field-goal for nearly nine minutes. The Mavericks scored only two baskets in the entire quarter and only one was against a set defense. Spanning the quarters was a 24-0 run, a franchise record. As was the five-point quarter allowed.

The catch tonight was that the Grizzlies had to have that kind of mind-boggling defensive spurt, because it was preceded by a narcoleptic first quarter in which they gave up 38 points before falling behind by 25 points early in the second.

“I don’t know what their mindset was coming in,” Lionel Hollins said of his team after the game.

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Beyond the Arc Sports

Game 56 Preview: Grizzlies vs. Mavericks

Dirk Nowitzki is back for the Mavericks.

  • Dirk Nowitzki is back for the Mavericks.

The Grizzlies will try to extend their conference-leading seven-game win streak tonight when they host Southwest Division rival Dallas Mavericks at FedExForum.

As usual, three thoughts in advance of the tilt:

1. The Twisty, Troubling Post-Trade Trajectory: The Grizzlies have gone 8-2 against a weak schedule with their post-trade roster, but, despite the record, this stretch as been one of sharp turns in terms of style and effectiveness. I’d break it down like this:

Off Eff Def Eff Pace Ast Ratio

WAS 91.9 81.4 92.9 17.4
PHO 97.3 102.5 93.1 12.3
ATL 102.2 113.0 90.6 22.0

These were the Post-Trade Malaise games. They squeaked by against an undermanned and offensively inept Wizards team and then lost two straight, plagued by turnover-riddled offense against the Suns and “no mas” first-half defense against the Hawks. The whole team was in a funk.

GS 105.2 100.2 93.5 20.3
MIN 118.4 97.8 89.3 22.8
SAC 108.5 102.5 99.1 16.5

The Rally the Troops Winning Streak heading into the break, seemingly prompted by the team and its coach simply deciding to stop pouting and get down to business. The offense exploded and the defensive tightened up a bit, but was still short of the team’s established norm.

DET 113.1 93.4 95.1 21.7
TOR 102.4 94.9 86.2 15.9

The Rudy Trade Road-Trip out of the break. Against the Pistons, the Grizzlies seemed to put it all together, combining their pre-break offense with a return to the ferocious defense that had been their hallmark for much of the past few seasons. The defense was just as spectacular against Toronto, but the paced slowed and the offense bogged down. A result of pressing too much in an unusually physical, second-of-a-back-to-back roadie or a start of something?

ORL 99.1 92.2 88.9 18.9
BKN 92.4 86.0 83.0 15.2

My fear is that this pair could become Regression to the Mean Weekend. The defense kept getting better, the offense fell apart, and the pace slowed to a crawl, with the danger that the Grizzlies could be coming out of their trade turbulence and settling into what they were for the two months before the deal: A great defensive team and a bad offensive team. Since the trade, Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol are both shooting under 45% from the floor while the team’s three-point attempts, already lowest in the league, have been trending down even more.

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Beyond the Arc Sports

Postgame Notebook: Grizzlies 92, Mavericks 82 — Tony Allen Shuts Down O.J. Mayo, Griz Sweep Homestand

CREDIT: LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

Marc Gasol sealed the game with two big offensive rebounds.

The Lead: On the night of O.J. Mayo’s return to Memphis the script didn’t change. The Grizzlies continued to terrorize on defense, play erratically on offense, and win.

Tony Allen cut off O.J. Mayo’s water, holding the Mavs leading scorer to 10 points on 3-11 shooting (with one of those points coming in the few seconds when Mayo was on the court by Allen wasn’t), and the Mavs weren’t able to make up the lost scoring, especially with 6-21 three-point shooting and 24 turnovers.

Overall, in this 3-0 homestand, the Grizzlies have held opponents to 77.7 points per game.

The Mavericks never led, but they did threaten, cutting an 11-point second quarter Grizzlies lead to only one at halftime when an isolation-happy Grizzlies offense managed only two points in the final three minutes of the half. The Mavs later cut a 17-point Grizzlies lead in the late third quarter to only three with a 21-7 run.

At that point, clinging to a one-possession lead, the Grizzlies brought all five starters back and sealed the game with four of their 17 offensive rebounds and 8 of their 22 second-chance points. The first two possessions out of the timeout — a Tony Allen tap rebound of a missed Mike Conley jumper that Rudy Gay turned into a hoop-and-harm short banker and a classic Zach Randolph and-one putback off a missed Rudy Gay three — pushed the lead back to nine. Later with the lead 88-82 and under two minutes to play, Marc Gasol grabbed consecutive offensive rebounds and hit a 22-footer in one back-breaking 47-second possession.

Man of the Match: Tony Allen has been doing a number on opposing scoring guards all season, but this was a showcase performance. He was matched up with Mayo for all but about 30 seconds of Mayo’s 35:21. Mayo only had one made field-goal through three quarters and finished with 10 points on 3-11 shooting. The mere 11 field-goal attempts in more than 35 minutes while the Mavericks offense was otherwise struggling is maybe the most impressive thing of all. Allen allowed Mayo no space. There were stretches on the floor where the Mavs seemed to almost give up on getting Mayo the ball.

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Beyond the Arc Sports

Game 24 Preview: Grizzlies vs. Mavericks

CREDIT: LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

O.J. Mayo returns to Memphis tonight.

The Dallas Mavericks have lost four of five and come into Memphis on a second night of a back-to-back following a 110-95 home loss to the Heat on Thursday night.

Three things on my mind about tonight’s game:

1. The Return of O.J. Mayo: The first appearance by Mayo at FedExForum in a different uniform is a storyline that threatens to obscure the rest of the game. Mayo’s played at a borderline All-Star level for the Mavericks — leading his new team with 20.2 points per game and leading the NBA with 50% three-point shooting — this season, becoming the latest in a now disturbingly long screen of recent, young ex-Grizzlies to depart the team and play better, following Kyle Lowry, DeMarre Carroll, and Greivis Vasquez and joining Jeremy Pargo, who’s also demanding entry in that club this season.

A litany of things went wrong with Mayo in Memphis: Getting cut from Team USA in favor of both teammate Rudy Gay and positional rival Eric Gordon. The move to the bench. (Which made sense based on the roster, but with which Mayo, despite saying the right things, never seemed really comfortable.) The fight with Tony Allen. The suspension. The oft-stated desire to play point guard, which was followed with a dismissive reaction from his coach and an utter failure to play the position when opportunities nonetheless presented themselves. A shifting pecking order based on performance, usage, and order of impending free agency that made it clear that a big contract extension from the Grizzlies would never be forthcoming.

All of this seemed to create a situation where a one-time presumed star morphed into an unhappy if generally professional-about-it role player. Even if the financial picture made retaining Mayo unlikely (and he certainly would never have returned to Memphis for the money Dallas paid), clearly the Grizzlies witnessed a major asset decline in value precipitously