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Beyond the Arc Sports

Grizzlies-Clippers Series Preview: Ten Takes, Part Two

Playoff-tested Tayshaun Prince could have the right match-up against the Clippers.

  • LARRY KUZNIEWSKI
  • Playoff-tested Tayshaun Prince could have the right match-up against the Clippers.

After a cover package in this week’s Flyer and a first installment of this series-specific preview yesterday, I wrap it up today with this second installment. The series begins at 9:30 tomorrow night in Los Angeles. Until then …

6. TP3: The Clippers are associated with Chris Paul and Blake Griffin. The less starry Grizzlies with the trio of Zach Randolph, Marc Gasol, and Mike Conley. But if Eric Bledsoe is the secondary player I see as most crucial for the Clippers’ hopes in this series, I think Tayshaun Prince could be the Grizzlies’ wild card.

Prince has been a very modest scorer for the Grizzlies since coming over at midseason, averaging only 8.8 points a game on 43/37 shooting, with his 9.1 field-goal attempts per game including only 1.1 three-points attempts.

But Prince has been a bigger factor against the Clippers. In three games this season, including one when he still played for Detroit, Prince has averaged 15.3 points on 54/57 shooting, his minutes (31.7 average for Griz, 36.3 vs. Clips), shot attempts (12.3), and three-point attempts (2.3) all up.

Though the sample size is obviously tiny, Prince’s shot selection has been less mid-range dependent against the Clippers than it’s been this season overall. And it’s easy to see why that might be the case. None of the Clippers’ small forwards — Caron Butler, Matt Barnes, and Grant Hill — are a deterrent to Prince’s post game. Meanwhile, the Clippers have proven susceptible to both wing scoring and three-point shooting overall, so if Prince spaces the floor out more than is typical for the Grizzlies — and this was happening in last week’s meeting between these teams — there will be open long-range looks.

Prince has hit the 15-point plateau only twice in 37 games with the Grizzlies, one of those against the Clippers. But with favorable match-ups, an expected bump in minutes, and so much defensive pressure on the Grizzlies’ backcourt, the bet here is that Prince does it a couple of times here if the series goes long and averages double-digits.

Prince’s ball-handling ability can also be a crucial release valve for the Grizzlies offense, giving the team a viable option outside the backcourt to advance the ball downcourt and initiate offensive sets, an adjustment the team made in the second half of the last meeting between these teams, after Eric Bledsoe had manhandled Griz guards in the first half.

The lanky Prince could also be the catalyst in another potentially key element of the series: Three-point shooting. Last spring that was — unsurprisingly — a big advantage for the Clippers, who made six a game on 38% shooting while the Grizzlies made three a game on 29% shooting. There’s good reason to think this disparity might even out this time.

The Grizzlies were an average team in terms of defending against three-point shooting before the Rudy Gay trade, but have been the NBA’s best in that department since. A more attentive Prince is less likely to surrender the kind of long-range barrage that helped the Clippers steal Game 1 last spring. Meanwhile, the Clippers have struggled to defend the three this season. In the two games between these teams since the trade, the Clippers and Grizzlies have each made 12 three-point field goals, but the Grizzlies have done so on 48% shooting to the Clippers’ 29%.

The key to threes in this series could be at the three, where the Clippers’ Butler and Barnes averaged three makes a game between them in the regular season while the Grizzlies’ Prince and Quincy Pondexter — who combined to shoot 8-15 from three against the Clippers this season — averaged a combined 1.5 a game. Winning the small forward match-up — overall but especially from three-point range — could be a quiet tipping point in the series.

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Beyond the Arc Sports

Grizzlies-Clippers Series Preview: Ten Takes, Part One

Its that time again ...

Rematch. The Grizzlies and the Clippers open their first-round series Saturday night in Los Angeles, with the Grizzlies looking to avenge last spring’s seven-game loss against a team that seems to have their number. Here’s the first half of a two-part series breakdown. Look for the rest tomorrow morning:

1. The State of the Clippers: For much of this season, the Clippers were right there with the Heat, Thunder, and Spurs among the NBA’s elite. They went undefeated in December as part of a 17-game win streak and stood at 32-9 in mid-January, a pace that would have garnered them the top seed in the West. At that 32-9 peak, the Clippers boasted the league’s fourth best offense and third best defense. The Spurs were the only other team in the top five on both sides of the ball, and they were right behind the Clippers in both measures. At that time, the Clippers could rightfully claim to be the NBA’s best team and seemed on the short list of legitimate title contenders.

But then the Clippers went on a four-game losing streak and played .500 ball — 17-17 — for more than two months. During the 17-17 streak, the team’s offense fell off some (8th in that span), but the real story was on the other side of the ball, where the team plummeted to 20th.

This wobbly defense had the Clippers looking more like a potential first-round casualty than a championship hopeful, but, unfortunately for the Grizzlies, April has been a period of rebirth in Los Angeles. The Clippers have ended the season on a seven-game win streak. There are caveats aplenty: Beyond the microscopic sample size, five of the team’s seven opponents in this closing stretch have been lottery participants. But for whatever it’s worth, the Clippers have ended the season with their offense absolutely humming and their defense back to the high level displayed earlier in the season.

On the season, this Clippers team has been a little bit better on both sides of the ball than a year ago. They’re a little more turnover prone, but have also done a better job capitalizing on their athleticism with a sharp uptick in both fastbreak points and points in the paint.

They’ve turned over most of the bench that gave the Grizzlies so many problems last spring, but still own an edge — on paper at least — over the Grizzlies there, with two Sixth Man-caliber candidates in Jamal Crawford and Matt Barnes. Perhaps most importantly, Chris Paul and Blake Griffin have had another year to hone their two-man-game chemistry and, after being banged up last April, will enter this postseason in what seems to be good health.

For a deeper look into how the Clippers look on the eve of the playoffs, check out this report from ESPN’s Clipperologist Kevin Arnovitz.