Tag: Postgame Notebook

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Beyond the Arc Sports

Postgame Notebook: Grizzlies 94, Bobcats 75 — Conley Leads a Bench Brigade

CREDIT: LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

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The Lead: As a home game against the league’s worst team that was bridging both a three-game West Coast road trip and a high-wattage weekend ahead, this was likely to be a pretty subdued game. And for three quarters it was.

The Grizzlies seemed to be playing at about 80 percent intensity but building a solid lead anyway, pushing their lead to nine at the end of the first quarter off a show-off Marc Gasol baseline bucket and a power transition hoop-and-harm from Ed Davis.

Still leading by nine at the half, the team got especially listless, letting the Bobcats whittle the lead completely away. This sent Lionel Hollins looking to his bench for energy and execution and this time he found it in a big, big way.

With Mike Conley opening the fourth quarter surrounded by four reserves — Quincy Pondexter, Austin Daye, Jon Leuer, and Ed Davis — the Grizzlies went on a 15-0 run, pushing a three-point lead early in the quarter to an 18-point lead with with under eight minutes to play. A minute later, Conley’s driving lay-up gave him another 20-point scoring night, bringing the lead to 19 and Conley to the bench for good. He was the only starter to play in the fourth.

It was a particularly good night for Daye (10 points on 4-7 shooting and 7 rebounds in 17 minutes) and Leuer (11 points on 4-4 shooting and 5 rebounds in 13 minutes).

One sequence — the play of the night — symbolized the fourth-quarter explosion: A Davis block into a Daye defensive rebound, which he dribbled toward mid-court before firing a no-look pass to Leuer, on the move in the middle of the lane. Leuer caught the pass and finished a twisting lay-up for the hoop-and-harm.

In his best performance of the season, Leuer showed everything he’s got. In addition to the transition bucket, he scored on two long pick-and-pops off Conley, got a dunk off a Davis feed, was solid on the defensive boards, and forced turnovers. After all that, he even decided to drop some dimes, setting up three-point buckets on back-to-back possessions.

“I kept looking for people to have energy,” Hollins said about going deep into his bench. “We weren’t running and had lost our pizzazz. I rolled the dice a little keeping Mike [Conley] in, but I thought he could lead that group and would be able to get into the lane with the floor more open.”

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Beyond the Arc Sports

Postgame Notebook: Grizzlies 92, Spurs 90 — Conley is Clutch, Griz Hit 50

CREDIT: LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

Mike Conley drove the Grizzlies home.

The Lead: For a half, this sequel to the best game at FedExForum this season threatened to be the worst. But it was saved by a frenetic fourth, a thrilling finish, and a big closing performance from Mike Conley that sealed the season’s 50th victory, tying a franchise record.

For the first 24 minutes, the Grizzlies were in the mud — and not in the good way — against a Spurs team missing three of its four best players (Tim Duncan, Kawhi Leonard, and Manu Ginobili). Even in building an early nine-point lead, the Grizzlies offense was awkward, and by the time the bench began to cycle through they looked like they’d just met up before the game, ending the half with 37 points on sub-32% shooting and a (lucky to be only) seven-point deficit.

In the third quarter, the Grizzlies played their normally super-effective starting lineup for close to nine minutes and managed to cut all of one point off the Spurs lead.

The fourth started poorly, with a Danny Green steal setting up a Gary Neal three-pointer. But then Jerryd Bayless did what sixth-men are supposed to do, giving the team a burst of energy and offense by scoring or assisting on three straight buckets to cut he deficit down to three. The rest of the way was a dogfight, with missed free-throws (3-6 down the stretch) and Tony Parker keeping the Grizzlies at bay.

Man of the Match: But with five minutes to go, Mike Conley put the team on his back. A lefty scoop lay-up brought the Grizzlies within two, then a bounce feed to Marc Gasol on the baseline sent Gasol to the line to tie it up. The Spurs rebuilt a four-point lead, but Conley sliced it in half with a jitterbugging drive down the lane. Down three with under a minute to go, Conley got a feed from Jerryd Bayless on the left elbow extended and knocked down a long one to tie the game.

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Beyond the Arc Sports

Postgame Notebook: Grizzlies 103, Rockets 94 — Z-Bo and the Griz Both Bounce Back

CREDIT: LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

Zach Randolph recovered from his recent slump with a now-rare 20-10 night as the Grizzlies beat the Rockets.

  • LARRY KUZNIEWSKI
  • Zach Randolph recovered from his recent slump with a now-rare 20-10 night as the Grizzlies beat the Rockets.

The Lead: The Grizzlies got a bounce-back game from Zach Randolph — 21 and 12 and strong to the glass on both ends — and a solid performance from all of the starters plus sixth-man Jerryd Bayless — everyone doing what they can and should do well — to lead the Rockets buzzer to buzzer.

After a tight early stretch in which the Rockets’ high-octane offense was breaking through the Grizzlies perimeter defense and routinely finding open three-point shooters, the Grizzlies defense settled in, allowing the team to build a nice lead in the late second (up 8 at the half) and into the third quarter (a high of 17 about eight minutes into the third).

A mismatch of bench units in the second half kept the Grizzlies from pulling away, with a feisty Rockets group using five Grizzlies turnovers in a roughly three-minute span to peel off a 10-2 run that cut the Grizzlies lead back to single digits and prompted Lionel Hollins to come back earlier than desired with his starters.

With the starters back, the Grizzlies used tighter defense and back-to-back Mike Conley steals to regain control of the game.

Overall, it was a return to the balance and execution that has typified the Grizzlies at their best this season, with the team’s top six players all taking between nine and 12 field-goal attempts and all scoring in double digits. But the Grizzlies achieved this balance in the context of exploiting their interior game, with both Randolph (6-12 from the floor and 9-10 from the line) and Marc Gasol (21 points on 8-12 shooting) topping 20 points for only the third time this season.

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Beyond the Arc Sports

Postgame Notebook: Grizzlies 110, Celtics 106 — Gasol Sits, Bayless Erupts in a Weird, Wild One.

CREDIT: LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

Darrell Arthur started and stepped up in Marc Gasols absence.

  • LARRY KUZNIEWSKI
  • Darrell Arthur started and stepped up in Marc Gasol’s absence.

The Lead: The lead story of this game is not the game itself, it’s the news that came prior to tip, that Marc Gasol would not play. This news was followed by a one-liner press release from the team:

The Memphis Grizzlies today announced that center Marc Gasol re-aggravated an abdominal tear on March 22 at New Orleans and will be out indefinitely.

That may sound bad, and it’s certainly not optimal, but I’d caution against freakouts. As the release implies, Gasol’s been playing hurt the last couple of weeks, and still playing well. There had already been signs and adjustments. Gasol was not jumping the tip in recent games to save wear and tear. And he would wince some after physical plays (such as the two charges he took against the Thunder). I wondered if the Randolph-heavy offensive game plan against the Thunder was related to that the injury.

As for sitting him now, my sense is there’s a cause/benefit aspect: How important is the remaining playoff positioning and how do you weigh that against the value of rest and treatment for an injury that won’t be going away before playoff time?

Both before and after the game, coach Lionel Hollins suggested it was a day-to-day thing. Others I talked with suggested Gasol would likely miss multiple games. But no one seems to think this endangers his availability for the postseason.

With Gasol out and Zach Randolph coming off the bench after being late to shootaround, the Grizzlies started Ed Davis and Darrell Arthur up front. The Celtics were also shifting lineups, with Kevin Garnett and Courtney Lee both out with ankle sprains.

The result was an out-of-character contest for this particular match-up. On the season, both Memphis and Boston are elite defensive teams (second and fifth, respectively) who play at a slow pace (28th and 19th) and are mediocre offensively (20th and 22nd).

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Beyond the Arc Sports

Postgame Notebook: Grizzlies 90, Thunder 89 — Gasol Tips It Home, West Race Tightens.

The Lead: With fewer than four minutes left in the third quarter, the Grizzlies had never trailed and had held the league’s top-ranked offense to a paltry 44 points on something like 35% shooting. But the Grizzlies offense was sputtering — they were working on a 14-point quarter and shooting in the 30s themselves — and you got the sense that if the Grizzlies didn’t find a better offensive flow then Kevin Durant was going to manufacture enough points to win it.

And that’s what it started to look like. In scoring 17 straight points for the Thunder from the mid-third into the early fourth, Durant brought his team from nine down at one point to taking their first lead. When the Thunder later pulled up by six with 1:26 to play in regulation on a three-pointer from sixth man Kevin Martin, it looked like they were on the verge of completing the comeback.

Instead it became of battle of big plays, and the Grizzlies made more. Mike Conley — as he had for most of the night — manufactured some points of his own to get it down to a single-possession game and 15 seconds to play. With Russell Westbrook splitting a pair of free throws, the Grizzlies, down three, ran a familiar play that almost never works: An in-bounds lob to the rim. But this time Jerryd Bayless caught the pass and drew contact, just missing a three-point play. A possession later, Bayless was fouled on a baseline drive. With Bayless and Westbrook alternating four straight perfect trips to the line, the game remained a three and the Grizzlies were forced to take a long-range shot. A chaotic possession resulted in a Bayless pump-fake and straightaway dagger to force overtime. Amid all the madness, credit Lionel Hollins for superb late-game management at the end of regulation.

In the final period, Marc Gasol, who had been quiet for much of the night, made decisive plays. His running hook over Kendrick Perkins gave the team a three-point lead. Then the Thunder’s stars answered: Durant with a floater and Russell Westbrook with a circus finish in front of the rim. With the Grizzlies down one and the shot-clock off, the Grizzlies went — as they had for much of the game — to Zach Randolph on the right block, even though Nick Collison was guarding him and well and Randolph wasn’t getting calls. Randolph missed a seven-footer, but Gasol reached up to tap it home with under a second to play and ran down the floor raising his fist and howling as time expired.

“Shit,” what can you say?

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Beyond the Arc Sports

Postgame Notebook: Grizzlies 91, Blazers 85 — Hollins Goes Small, Comes Up Big

CREDIT: LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

Mike Conley and the Griz finally found a groove in the second half.

  • LARRY KUZNIEWSKI
  • Mike Conley and the Griz finally found a groove in the second half.

The Lead: After getting poor combined play from three young frontcourt players elevated by the absence of Zach Randolph and Darrell Arthur, seeing his team look sluggish and out of sync on both ends of the floor, and falling down by as many as 17 points in the third quarter, Lionel Hollins went small, bringing Tayshaun Prince back into the game for Ed Davis late in the third quarter.

At that point, the Grizzlies were down 11 points and Marc Gasol and Mike Conley were playing well but couldn’t find anyone to join them. Jerryd Bayless and Quincy Pondexter had just missed consecutive wide-open jumpers that would have cut the deficit to single digits. Nothing was working. But against the Blazers reserves, with combo forward Victor Claver at power forward, going small generated energy in the form of a furious 10-1 closing run.

Hollins stayed small throughout the fourth, even when the Blazers brought their starters back in, and the Grizzlies ended up closing the game on a 36-19 run over the final 15 minutes with Prince joining Marc Gasol up front, Mike Conley and Bayless manning the backcourt, and Pondexter and Tony Allen splitting up small forward minutes.

Prince put on a clinic for much of the game in the art of missing wide-open mid-range jumpers — when one finally dropped, he raised his endless arms to the sky in relief — but his ability to hold his own defensively and on the boards even after the Blazers brought back burly starter J.J. Hickson was a quiet key that allowed Gasol, Bayless, and Conley to make a series of game-saving plays.

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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

Postgame Notebook: Grizzlies 88, Magic 82 — Just Enough and Nothing More

CREDIT: LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

Mike Conley, like his team, was just good enough to beat a depleted Magic squad.

  • LARRY KUZNIEWSKI
  • Mike Conley, like his team, was just good enough to beat a depleted Magic squad.

The Lead: If the Grizzlies were doing an experiment in how listlessly they could play and still win, they probably cut it pretty close against an Orlando Magic team reduced — by the trade, injury, and suspension — to a seven-man, near-Summer-League assemblage.

Six of the Magic’s seven active players were rookies or sophomores and with a little under five minutes to go in the game two of them — starters Nikola Vucevic and Andrew Nicholson — had fouled out, leaving the Magic with every active player on the floor.

Was it hard to tell your team this Magic squad could beat them?, Lionel Hollins was asked to begin his post-game press conference. Hollins took the question literally and delivered a dry response: “It wasn’t hard to tell them that,” Hollins said, “But it is hard for them to believe this team has a chance to beat them.”

Hollins credited Orlando with playing hard from beginning to end and judged that his own team “did enough to win, and it wasn’t pretty.”

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Beyond the Arc Sports

Postgame Notebook: Grizzlies 108, Kings 101 — TCB Before the Break

CREDIT: LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

Tony Allen was in rare form against the Kings.

Making this quick because, like the Grizzlies, I’m ready for the All-Star break too.

The Lead: After a sharp performance against a bad team Sunday, the Grizzlies gave an erratic, clock-watching kind of performance against the Kings Tuesday night in the final game before the All-Star break. Combatting erratic energy and execution all night, the Grizzlies committed 21 turnovers and were more the doubled-up in steals (12-5) and fastbreak points (28-13) — all very much inter-related numbers — en route to giving up 100 points on the FedExForum floor for the first time all season.

But, ultimately, the better team with the most determined player (one Tony Allen) was able to pull away in the fourth quarter, and go into the break on a three-game win streak.

Man of the Match: Tony Allen struggled with Tyreke Evans both early and late, but was the best player on the floor for much of the game, giving the Grizzlies an energy boost early when they desperately needed it and continuing his sharp play into the second quarter.

Allen’s wonky knee must be feeling pretty good lately, because he’s going up high on rebounds and finishing strong at the rim in addition to his usual fast-twitch defense and underrated off-ball cuts. Allen scored a season-high 19 points on 8-12 shooting, to go with 8 rebounds, 3 assists, and 2 steals.

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Beyond the Arc Sports

Postgame Notebook: Grizzlies 105, Wolves 88 — Good Signs, With an Asterisk

CREDIT: LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

Mike Conley helped lead a balanced, share-the-ball attack as the Grizzlies won comfortably against the depleted Timberwolves.

  • LARRY KUZNIEWSKI
  • Mike Conley helped lead a balanced, share-the-ball attack as the Grizzlies won comfortably against the depleted Timberwolves.

The Lead: The Grizzlies were facing a Minnesota Timberwolves team in a world of hurt, playing without Kevin Love and Andrei Kirilenko, among many others, and owners of exactly one road win this season without Love in the lineup. So there’s a limit to how much you can learn from this one.

But it did display two hopeful new facts of life for Grizzlies basketball following the Rudy Gay trade: Ball movement and depth.

The Grizzlies assisted on 30 of 41 baskets, with Marc Gasol and Mike Conley sharing the team lead with 8 each and Tony Allen, Jerryd Bayless, and Tony Wroten chipping in three each. The 30 assists was a season high.

The beneficiaries of much of the his passing largess were the team’s two new small forwards, Tayshaun Prince and Austin Daye, who combined to score 34 points on 14-17 shooting. (Prince was a perfect 8-8.) Don’t expect production quite like that ever again, but the contrast between Prince and Daye and the departed Rudy Gay is pretty stark. Some nights the Grizzlies’ will miss Gay’s isolation scoring. But with Prince cutting well off the ball and spotting up in the corner and Daye finding space for a potentially deadly catch-and-shoot game, they can help supply points without stopping the ball. In this one, nine of their 14 buckets were assisted. Two of the other five were tip-ins.

The Grizzlies’ assist rate shot up immediately after the trade. Improved scoring has lagged behind, but we’ve seen that this weekend. Hopefully it’s a trend and not a blip.

“The ball movement is getting contagious,” Lionel Hollins said after the game. “Everybody is moving the ball. It’s nice; giving goals to Zach, guys cutting. The whole team is just looking to make the extra pass and the extra play. When you make shots, the assists do pile up, but I think the willingness to pass is important, and we are doing that.”