Tag: Playoffs

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Beyond the Arc Sports

Real Talk: The One Where I Walk It Back for the Stretch Run

Jonas Valanciunas and Jaren Jackson Jr.


As everyone is winding down from the excitement of All-Star Weekend and we enter the stretch run to the end of the regular season, now seems like a good time to publicly rescind a thing that I said here in this space last month.

At the time, it seemed like a pretty reasonable position – this early in a rebuild, the playoffs shouldn’t be the season’s goal, and thus the Grizzlies should continue their focus on developing as a team, not altering plans in a pursuit to win now.

It was not meant to disparage any part of this fledgling squad. I didn’t realize how many people would misinterpret it or just be plain mad about it. I’m looking at you, Memphis Twitter. 


But now the trade deadline has passed and with it my biggest fear (an ill-advised roster move in an effort to win now). The Grizzlies seem to have landed organically in the 8th seed, so I’m ready to reconsider my previous position on the playoffs. 

Two things have set us on this path. One, this team has been light years better than anyone expected. Two, other teams in the West have been a lot worse than expected.

It’s amazing how much can happen in the space of a month. Since I published that article in early January, the Grizzlies have played 16 games, posting a 12-4 record, including a seven-game winning streak.

During that time we have also seen: a career-high scoring game from Brandon Clarke, Ja Morant’s first NBA triple-double, and the aforementioned players, plus Jaren Jackson Jr. playing in the Rising Stars Challenge game during NBA All-Star Weekend.

Along the way the team has managed to surpass the overall expected win total they were predicted to have, with still 28 games left to play in the regular season.  

This squad has absolutely proven me wrong and I am not above admitting that.

They truly are so much better than anyone anticipated, and I can’t recall having this much fun watching winning Grizzlies basketball in years.

There is a part of me will always feel sentimental about the Core Four era of Grit ‘n Grind. That team meant a lot to this city, and even in today’s RINGZ culture, that still means something. 


But I have quickly grown to love the new GNG era, the #GrzNxtGen one. If this is the future of our franchise, I will take it.

So, in conclusion: F*ck it, let’s go to the playoffs. 

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Beyond the Arc Sports

Game 1: Spurs 105, Grizzlies 83 — When 0-1 Looks Steeper Than it Did Before

CREDIT: LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

Quincy Pondexter was one of the few brights spots for the Grizzlies, as they dropped Game 1 in San Antonio.

  • LARRY KUZNIEWSKI
  • Quincy Pondexter was one of the few brights spots for the Grizzlies, as they dropped Game 1 in San Antonio.

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In a dreadful start to the series for the Grizzlies, let me start by underscoring four points that I made in my series preview:

1. The key to defending the Spurs has less to do with containing stars than containing team three-point shooting, especially from role players. Tony Parker was splendid on Sunday afternoon, scoring 20 points on 9-14 shooting, with 9 assists. But Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili combined for only 14 points on 5-15 shooting. Instead, the Spurs killed the Grizzlies from outside, hitting a franchise playoff record 14 three-pointers on 29 attempts, the most made threes the Grizzlies have yielded all season. And the bulk of the damage came from secondary scorers Danny Green, Kawhi Leonard, and Matt Bonner, who combined to shoot 11-17 from three.

2. The Grizzlies low turnovers and high rate of free-throw attempts in rounds one and two were not going to be sustainable in this series. The Grizzlies did a good job of taking care of the ball after a rough start, their 12 turnovers only slightly more than the 10.4 average in the first two rounds, but the team’s inflated 31.6 free-throw attempts came down to a more reasonable 20.

3. The Grizzlies’ propensity for funky lineups in Game 1 repeated itself. The Grizzlies were still theoretically in the hunt when the team put out a small-ball lineup of Jerryd Bayless-Tony Wroten-Quincy Pondexter-Tony Allen-Zach Randolphto start the fourth and brought in Austin Daye for Wroten soon after.

4. The biggest key of all for this game was going to be which team could better adjust to the stylistic whiplash from their previous series, and clearly that was the Spurs, in a big, big way. After chasing three-point shooters all over the floor against the Golden State Warriors, the Spurs seemed almost relieved to be in a halfcourt defense against the Grizzlies, crowding the paint and routinely ignoring Grizzlies’ wing players. The Grizzlies, on the other end, couldn’t adjust as quickly to the Spurs’ spread offense and quick, deft ball movement, which provides an extreme contrast to the over-reliance on stars Chris Paul and Kevin Durant that the Grizzlies were able to snuff out in the first and second rounds. As it turned out, playing against Vinny Del Negro and Scott Brooks was poor preparation for playing against Gregg Popovich.

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Beyond the Arc Sports

Griz-Thunder Game 4 Preview

CREDIT: LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

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A few quick thoughts ahead of tonight’s Game 4:

Will the Griz Regret Game 1?: Before this series started, I picked the Grizzlies to win in 6, and that’s still where I’m at. But I’m actually slightly less optimistic about their prospects than I was before Game 3 despite the team pulling that one out. The Thunder finally made the adjustments they needed in Game 3 and it almost got them a victory. If series trends have reversed with those adjustments, then dropping Game 1 will be tough to stomach. The Grizzlies squandered 38 minutes of Kendrick Perkins and Hasheem Thabeet (the duo was a combined -14), a gift unlikely to be repeated in the series, via missed free throws and having Tony Allen on the bench while Kevin Durant led a fourth-quarter comeback. In retrospect — if even that — the Grizzlies spotted the Thunder a game, and with OKC seeming to have figured things out a little, that’s dangerous.

Will OKC Go Small Ball or Bust?: The Thunder have outscored the Grizzlies in the series with lineups featuring only one “big” (which almost always includes Kevin Durant at power forward) and Game 3 was the first time their lineup distribution tipped in that direction, playing 27 minutes small (+2) to 21 minutes big (-8). Given the results, does Brooks push most of his chips in on small ball tonight? If so, the Grizzlies can’t let themselves be out-rebounded again, and need to make their big lineups work to resist the temptation of keeping one of their three best players on the bench in order to match up with the Thunder. This all makes Zach Randolph a key player tonight. It was Randolph’s inability to control offensive rebounds in his grasp that stood out most amid the Game 3 rebounding problems. And it’s Randolph that will likely be “hiding” on a Thunder perimeter player defensively.

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Beyond the Arc Sports

Game 3: Grizzlies 87, Thunder 81 — Making Them When it Matters

CREDIT: Larry Kuzniewski

Marc Gasol drew a crowd but still lead the Grizzlies to an 87-81 win and a 2-1 series lead over the Thunder Saturday night.

  • LARRY KUZNIEWSKI
  • Marc Gasol drew a crowd but still lead the Grizzlies to an 87-81 win and a 2-1 series lead over the Thunder Saturday night.

From the arena concourse to the locker room to the dais of the post-game press conference, the mood was more one of relief than exultation for the Grizzlies and their fans after escaping with an 87-81 win at FedExForum Saturday night to take a 2-1 series lead over the Oklahoma City Thunder.

The Grizzlies won this tight game for much the same reason they had lost Game 1 in Oklahoma City; free throws. The Grizzlies converted 23 of 28 attempts at the line (82%), including a perfect 6-6 from Marc Gasol and Mike Conley in the game’s final two minutes, while Thunder star Kevin Durant — a career 88% foul shooter — suffered a devastating empty trip with under a minute to play. Those Grizzlies free throws were the only points scored in the game’s final two minutes, which began with the teams tied 81-81.

In addition to Durant’s missed free throws, the Thunder also watched Derek Fisher, so strong in Oklahoma City, miss an open three off a turnover on the subsequent possession.

With Lionel Hollins astutely managing offense/defense substitutions down the stretch to mitigate potential mismatches against the Thunder’s small-ball lineup and with Conley and Gasol coming up clutch from the charity stripe, the Grizzlies’ late game execution pulled them through what had been a shaky performance for much of the game.

“I feel like every game we have gotten better and today we were not better than the last game,” Gasol said afterward.

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Beyond the Arc Sports

Griz-Thunder Game 3 Preview: Twelve Takes, Part One

CREDIT: Ronald Martinez, Getty Images

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  • Ronald Martinez, Getty Images

I was mostly done researching and thinking my way through the elements of a planned two-part preview of Saturday’s game — one part meant to post Thursday morning, with a second part following Friday morning — and had begun the writing process Wednesday night when my laptop decided it had had enough. I lost everything. I’ll spare you the details of how this post came to be — a planes, trains, and automobiles of compositional technologies — but suffice it to say this isn’t quite what I’d intended.

The problem did heighten an issue I grapple with quite a bit: How much should I “show my work,” in math-class terms. I’ve always consulted statistics as a necessary companion to personal observation and other forms of information. Concepts such as pace, usage, efficiency, and other building blocks of “advanced” statistics are not new trends in this space. Often I cite specific numbers to support claims. But sometimes the math is left in the background, an unstated element that helped form an opinion or hone an observation.

I’m not sure which is preferable — some readers like to follow the data; others, I’m sure, grow weary of too much statistical recitation. So I try to find a balance. And this time, with research lost and limits of time and technology weighing against a recreation, I may not show much work. Just know that when I say that Kendrick Perkins is killing the Thunder or that Scott Brooks should really consider using more small-ball or that Jerryd Bayless may be hurting the Griz defense more than helping the offense that there’s something backing all of that up.

So, here’s a somewhat truncated and considerably less precise first installment of my planned twelve takes. Part two will post later in the day Friday if things go well or Saturday morning if they don’t.

1. New Nickname Alert: This has no bearing on the outcome of the series, obviously, but I took great pleasure in the TNT postgame show after Game 2, when Charles Barkley christened Zach Randolph with a new nickname, “Ol’ Man River,” in reference to Randolph’s “old-man game” and the way he keeps rolling along against younger, more athletic competitors. (They get weary, and sick of trying.) This is even more perfect than Barkley knows, given Memphis’ perch on the river the song refers to as well as the song’s own treasured history in Memphis. It’s too bad we can’t have James Hyter bless this with a FedExForum performance.

This isn’t the first time, incidentally, that a national broadcast has made a brilliant musical reference with regard to the Grizzlies — or to Randolph, to be specific. In the 2011 playoff run, there was a package on the Randolph and Gasol combo — before first-round, Game 2, I think; I can’t remember the network — to the tune of John Fogerty’s “Big Train (From Memphis).” This was also perfect. The rumbling, locomotive imagery and insistent, old-fashioned rhythm matching Gasol and Randolph’s rumbling, old-fashioned style.

It occurred to me, thinking of the late Hyter, that perhaps if the Grizzlies advance we could get Fogerty in town for a Griz-specific update of his song: “Big Spain (From Memphis),” anyone?

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Beyond the Arc Sports

Game 2: Grizzlies 99, Thunder 93 — Tony Allen’s Reminder, Mike Conley’s Breakout

CREDIT: LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

Tony Allen was a difference-maker down the stretch as the Grizzlies evened the series 1-1.

  • LARRY KUZNIEWSKI
  • Tony Allen was a difference-maker down the stretch as the Grizzlies evened the series 1-1.

With six seconds left in a decided game, Tony Allen stole the ball and did what you’re not supposed to do, streaking down the floor for a needless exclamation dunk, then soaking in the boos it provoked. Seconds later, according to the Twitter feed of Commercial Appeal beat writer Ron Tillery, Allen walked by the scorer’s table and yelled, “First team, all defense [expletive].”

Was Allen taunting his opponent or the fans in Oklahoma City? I doubt it. More likely, his target was some mix of the basketball gods, himself, and his coach. He was letting out some frustration and reasserting something that seemed to have been forgotten. And he did it with his game before he did it with words.

In Game 1 of this series, Allen — by acclamation one of the two or three best perimeter defenders in the league — played only 21 minutes in a game in which his team gave up 60 of 93 points to two wing players in Kevin Durant and Kevin Martin. He sat for most of a fourth quarter in which his team gave up 29 points and watched a nine-point lead evaporate as Durant made a series of big plays down the stretch.

Afterward, his coach, Lionel Hollins, explained that Allen was too short to guard Durant now. Using other defenders on the Thunder’s brilliant star, the Grizzlies had surrendered 35-15-6 on 13-26 shooting.

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Beyond the Arc Sports

Griz-Thunder Game 2 Preview: The Conley & K-Mart Correlations

CREDIT: LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

Mike Conley may be the most important player in this series for the Grizzlies.

  • LARRY KUZNIEWSKI
  • Mike Conley may be the most important player in this series for the Grizzlies.

I did a radio interview with a station in Tulsa on Monday afternoon. Early on, we talked about how defending Kevin Martin would be a key to the series. At the end, they brought it back to Martin, saying — and I agree — that he’s become the biggest “x-factor” for the Thunder since Russell Westbrook’s injury. Then they asked if I thought there was a Grizzlies player whose performance was a barometer of team success. I laughed. Funny you should ask …

I’ve been half-jokingly touting the Conley Correlation all season — predicting it before the season, really — and it’s mostly held up in the playoffs. In Game 1 against the Clippers, Conley looked overmatched, particularly in the first half, and the Grizzlies were blown out. After that, Conley settled down and played Chris Paul, if not quite even, at least closer than most would have expected, putting up a massive 28-9 in a Game 2 that was only lost on a last-second shot by Paul. In the four wins, Conley notched 36 assists to only five turnovers, scoring 15 or more points in three of the four wins. He did shoot a dreadful 1-9 in a Game 3 win, but offset that with a superb 10/0 assist/turnover performance.

Against the Thunder, Conley had his worst all-around game of the playoffs so far, shooting 5-15 with only three assists and a couple of killer turnovers in the final minute. If the Grizzlies are going to have a chance to win this series, that can’t stand. Facing the athletic but inexperienced Reggie Jackson or the 38-year-old Derek Fisher in most instances, Conley needs to assert himself. He’s the best all-around guard in this series now, and the Grizzlies probably won’t win unless he plays like it.

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Beyond the Arc Sports

Game 1: Thunder 93, Grizzlies 91 — Déjà Vu Times Two

CREDIT: LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

DSC_5928.jpeg

Game 1 in Oklahoma City Sunday afternoon yielded a pretty simple synopsis: The Grizzlies made too many mistakes — 10 missed free throws and more turnovers than made field-goals in the final five minutes — and Kevin Durant was brilliant.

Ultimately, this game — played, ridiculously, less than a day and a half after the Grizzlies and Thunder had polished off their first-round opponents — felt like a combination of the Grizzlies’ Game 1 and 2 losses against the Clippers. Like in Game 1 of that series, the Grizzlies played non-optimal lineups (Austin Daye and Keyon Dooling combined for 13 shaky minutes) and gave up a huge fourth quarter with an All-NBA defender (Tony Allen) mostly on the bench. Like in Game 2 of that series, the Grizzlies lost a close game on the road with a legit superstar (Durant) taking over down the stretch.

It was a frustrating loss, but not one that should shake the team’s confidence in terms of being able to win this series. Durant (35-15-6 on 13-26 shooting from the floor and 9-10 from the line) went large. Now-crucial second scorer Kevin Martin (25 and 7 off the bench on 8-14 shooting) was allowed to join him. The Grizzlies got poor play from both of their starting guards, fell apart down the stretch, and missed tons of free throws. All of this and the Thunder barely survived — potentially a missed Quincy Pondexter free-throw from overtime — in their own building. The Grizzlies could play the same game the rest of the series and have a chance to win. And odds are they’ll play better.

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Beyond the Arc Sports

Grizzlies-Thunder Series Preview: Ten Takes

CREDIT: LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

Zach Randolph vs. Nick Collison could be a key match-up in the series.

  • LARRY KUZNIEWSKI
  • Zach Randolph vs. Nick Collison could be a key match-up in the series.

With the barely-a-day break between the end of the first-round series with the Los Angeles Clippers and the start of Sunday’s second-round series with the Oklahoma City Thunder happening to coincide with a day of solo parenting for me, there wasn’t much time to research this Thunder-Grizzlies playoff rematch. (Grizzlies Playoffs: Revenge Tour 2013)

But I did manage to scribble out 10 quick takes on what lies ahead. This time I’m blaming any typos, tortured sentence constructions, or other deficiencies on David Stern:

1. Schedule: Only the first three games have been announced by the league so far:

Game 1: Noon, Sunday, Oklahoma City (ABC)
Game 2: 8:30 p.m., Tuesday, Oklahoma City (TNT)
Game 3: 4 p.m., Saturday, Memphis (ESPN)

2. There’s Some History Here: Past results aren’t going to be much guarantee of future performance in this series, not with first James Harden, and then Rudy Gay, and now Russell Westbrook all out of the mix. But the Thunder probably figure more prominently in recent Griz lore than any other team. Over the past three seasons, these teams have battled to a 9-9 draw across three season series and a seven-game playoff battle. Four of those 18 games went to overtime and homecourt hasn’t been an overwhelming factor, with each team winning several times on the opponent’s floor.

The Thunder were witness to Tony Allen’s breakout game for the Grizzlies. They were the backdrop to The Birth of Grit and Grind. The postseason series in 2011 included that triple-overtime home heartbreaker. This season’s three-game series was highly eventful, from the Gasol/Perkins/Randolph Incident, to the Grizzlies demoralizing-in-the-moment first game after the Rudy Gay trade, to Marc Gasol’s overtime tip-in.

We can only hope the next four-to-seven games between these small-market rivals will be as intense and memorable.

3. Grizzlies First Round Notes: The Grizzlies exit their first-round series having settled on a eight-man rotation — starters backed by Jerryd Bayless, Quincy Pondexter, and Darrell Arthur. Keyon Dooling got spot minutes as a back-up point guard when he was healthy and Ed Davis started out in a similar frontcourt role before falling out of the rotation entirely.

Zach Randolph played his best basketball in two years. Marc Gasol was solid on both ends. Mike Conley continued his ascent. Tony Allen rebounded like a beast and scored efficiently. Tayshaun Prince and Quincy Pondexter’s shots came and went, but their defense and all-around team play was mostly a plus through.

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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.