Tag: Postgame Notebook

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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

Postgame Notebook: Grizzlies 80, Bulls 71 — Both Teams Played Hard (Defense)

CREDIT: LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

The Lead: This one fit the pre-game profile: A hard-fought, low-scoring slugfest between two elite defensive teams with middle-of-the-pack offenses.

Man of the Match: Mike Conley

The Grizzlies haven’t allowed an opponent to top 100 points since their opening-night loss to the Los Angeles Clippers and the 71 they allowed the Bulls tonight is a season low for a Grizzlies opponent.

For the Grizzlies, some of their offensive struggles — 19 turnovers, 38 shooting — were familiar from last week’s losing streak, but when asked how much of that was a continuation of recent problems, Lionel Hollins answered “None of it.”

Hollins instead credited the Bulls defense, and I think I agree. So, while recent offense trends are concerning, I’m giving the team a pass on this one.

“I don’t know what fans think, but for a coach this was a good basketball game,” Hollins said. “A good, hard-fought game from both sides.”

The Grizzlies used a much-needed bench boost to overcome a terrible offensive start and take a small lead into the half. In the second half, Mike Conley’s playmaking (10 points and 4 assists) and Zach Randolph’s rebounding (9 of his game-high 15) helped the Grizzlies maintain control.

Man of the Match: One potentially decisive trend that went the right way for the Grizzlies in this one was the play of Mike Conley, whose turnovers tended to correlate with team success this season. Conley had only 2 turnovers against the Bulls, while scoring a game-high 17 points on 6-12 shooting and quietly dominating his match-up with Bulls point guard Kirk Hinrich.

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Beyond the Arc Sports

Post-Weekend Notebook: Griz Split with Pistons and Spurs

Mike Conley: Man of the Weekend

This weekend’s Grizzlies back-to-back got away from me a little bit. I was at Friday’s home game with the Pistons, a 90-78 win, but as a civilian, taking my soon-to-be-three-year-old son to his first game. And I watched Saturday night’s 99-95 overtime road loss to the San Antonio Spurs on DVR delay.

As a means of catching up, I’m re-purposing the Postgame Notebook format to look back on what happened in Griz World this weekend:

The Lead: The Grizzlies went 1-1 on the weekend while playing without Tony Allen, who was nursing a sore groin.

Friday’s home game against the Pistons was a rough repeat of the prior home games against the Cavaliers and Raptors: The Grizzlies played down to competition in the first half and then turned up their defense in the second to secure a double-digit win.

Saturday night, the Grizzlies played a very well rested Spurs team on their own home floor, on the second night of a back to back, and built a 15-point lead in the second half before succumbing to some combination of fatigue, poor execution, and questionable calls.

On the latter: The missed shot-clock violation near the end of overtime was clearly an official’s error, but one that was only harmful to the Grizzlies in retrospect. If Jerryd Bayless and Rudy Gay had connected on the subsequent long lead pass for a transition layup, the Grizzlies would have benefited from not having the violation called. As far Manu Ginobili grabbing Gay’s arm on his attempted catch of that pass, it was definitely a foul, but not all actual fouls are actually called in NBA games. For the Grizzlies, that was an infuriating non-call, but it wasn’t a terribly surprising one.

As it is, after 15 games the Grizzlies stand at 12-3 and still lack a bad loss: Single digits to the Clippers in their home opener. A narrow home loss to a deep, athletic Nuggets team on the final game of a three-in-four-nights set. And nip-and-tuck road overtime loss in San Antonio on the second of a back-to-back. That’s it. The Grizzlies are the last team standing this NBA season that has yet to lose a game by double-digits.

If you want to be concerned about something, you could point to the team’s 0-2 record in games that have come down to execution in the final couple of minutes. But two games — two! — is a pretty small sample size.

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Beyond the Arc Sports

Postgame Notebook: Grizzlies 103, Raptors 82 — An “Ante Up” Third Quarter Overwhelms Toronto

CREDIT: LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

Tony Allen, kidnapping fools in the third.

The Lead: For awhile, this one seemed like a repeat of Monday’s game against Cleveland, with the Grizzlies playing down a level against weaker competition for a long stretch to start the game. But it seemed worse in a way, with Mike Conley back at the helm and the Raptors — playing on the second night of a back-to-back — showing a little less fight than the Cavs had.

But, this time, the Grizzlies didn’t wait until the fourth quarter to amp up their team defense and put the game away. After a 48-47 first half, the Grizzlies overwhelmed the Raptors with a 33-14 third quarter in which it took the Raptors more than eight minutes to notch their second made field goal of the period. This 22-6 Grizzlies run included four steals and two blocks from Grizzlies perimeter players, and was spurred by Tony Allen, who has been rounding into better all-around form after a rough start offensively. But this was the first time this season that Allen seemed to be in full “Ante Up” form. One steal from Kyle Lowry became a breakaway bucket. Then Allen kidnapped DeMar DeRozan, taking the ball away on an attempted jumper and finishing on the other end with a rare one-hand dunk that capped the 22-6 run and effectively ended the game.

Man of the Match: If Allen’s eruption was the most memorable aspect of the game, Zach Randolph was again the team’s best all-around player. On the day that I wrote about Marc Gasol’s passing exploits, with was Randolph tonight who was dropping dimes, doubling his previous season high with 6 assists. Randolph added 17 points on 7-10 shooting and 13 rebounds. With floor-stretching Raptor power forward Andrea Bargnani banged-up and not active, the entire frontcourt was a mismatch in the Grizzlies favor in this one, with the Grizzlies’ big-man rotation combining for 54 points and 30 rebounds while their Toronto counterparts mustered only 16 points and 14 rebounds. Marreese Speights, struggling with his shot for most of the season, contributed 18 and 12 of that, on 7-11 shooting. Speights needed one of those, and Lionel Hollins attributed his improved play to a strong practice the day before.

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Beyond the Arc Sports

Postgame Notebook: Grizzlies 84, Cavaliers 78 — Winning Ugly Without Mike Conley

CREDIT: LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

His double-double streak ended, but Zach Randolph still came up strong.

  • LARRY KUZNIEWSKI
  • His double-double streak ended, but Zach Randolph still came up strong.

The Lead: With Mike Conley a late scratch due to “flu-like symptoms,” the Grizzlies got a taste of life without their starting point guard, and it was not good. With Conley out and the quick, pesky defense of Cleveland’s Anderson Varejao keeping Marc Gasol from operating as comfortably out of the high post as he has for most of this season, the Grizzlies offense struggled all night, to the tune of a season-low 84 points against what has been, statistically, the second-worst defense in the NBA.

For most of the game, the Grizzlies’ out-of-sorts O wasn’t much worse than their curiously flat-footed D, allowing a Cavs team playing without their own starting point guard — emerging star Kyrie Irving — to shoot 48% and take a 69-62 lead into the fourth quarter. It was the first time this season the Grizzlies had trailed after three quarters.

But the Grizzlies clamped down defensively in fourth quarter, finally bringing full grit-and-grind intensity to an otherwise sleepy Monday-night game against a low-profile opponent.

The Grizzles began the fourth with six consecutive stops and ended the game with a series of big defensive plays in the last three minutes: A forced shot-clock violation while clinging to a two-point lead. Marc Gasol picking up a charge to stop a Cleveland fastbreak. And two Tony Allen steals in the final 1:18, the second off Varejao along the sideline. The second came with the shot-clock off and Cleveland down four, forcing a foul and essentially sealing the game. Allen swaggered along the sideline, slapping hands with the front-row fans.

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Beyond the Arc Sports

Postgame Notebook: Grizzlies 106, Lakers 98 — Timberlake Takes in a Laker Loss

CREDIT: LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

New minority owner Justin Timberlake (with Jessica Biel to his left) made the scene courtside to see the Grizzlies beat the Lakers.

  • LARRY KUZNIEWSKI
  • New minority owner Justin Timberlake (with Jessica Biel to his left) made the scene courtside to see the Grizzlies beat the Lakers.

The Lead: The Grizzlies overcame erratic bench play and prolific Lakers three-point shooting for an impressive victory that put the team back atop league-wide standings at 9-2.

After taking a 9-8 lead about three-and-a-half minutes into the game with a step-back three-pointer from Rudy Gay, the Grizzlies never again trailed. Memphis took a 16-point lead into the second quarter, but the Lakers went on a 15-2 run, led by three-pointers from Antawn Jamison, Chris Duhon, and Metta World Peace. The Lakers cut another 16-point Grizzlies lead down to 5 midway through the fourth quarter off back-to-back Kobe Bryant three-pointers, but with Bryant trying to take over the game, Tony Allen tightened up his defense and forced Bryant into bad long-range misses on the next two possessions to hold the lead. In the final two minutes, Mike Conley calmly sunk a step-back 16 footer and then a pull-up 20-footer to seal it.

To a man, the Grizzlies’ starters played about as well as a unit as we’ve seen, with Allen and Quincy Pondexter tag-teaming to keep a quality defender on Bryant for most of the game.

In roughly 27 minutes of game time in which the Grizzlies paired their “core four” — Conley, Rudy Gay, Zach Randolph, and Marc Gasol — with either Allen or Pondexter, the Grizzlies outscored the Lakers 65-45. In the 21 minutes in which one of the other reserves was on the floor, the Lakers outscored the Grizzlies 53-41.

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Beyond the Arc Sports

Postgame Notebook: Nuggets 97, Grizzlies 92 — An Unsurprising Ending

CREDIT: LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

Rudy Gay

Non-Griz deadlines on Tuesday necessitates a briefer-than-usual notebook:

The Lead: Let’s be honest, both of these teams were due for this. The Grizzlies hadn’t lost a regular-season home game since March. The Nuggets are a good team who got off to a rougher than expected start. Regression to the mean collided at FedExForum tonight.

With the Grizzlies playing their third game in four nights, the Nuggets younger legs and superior depth made this a game. For the first time all season for the Grizzlies, the outcome came down in final-minutes execution, which did not go well for the Grizzlies.

For starters, after having big vs. small match-ups go their way in multiple games last week, lineup imbalance worked against the Grizzlies tonight. The Nuggets played starting small forward Danilo Gallinari as a stretch four for most of the fourth quarters while the Grizzlies played small and Gallinari was able to drive and shoot his way to 9 points in the quarter. After the game, Lionel Hollins second-guessed the decision to stay big.

And the Grizzlies twice committed turnovers coming out of timeouts in the last minute. The most galling of these came with the Grizzlies down 93-92 and 46 seconds left in the game. Despite having a size mismatch on the post — and, admittedly, Marc Gasol had turned the ball over on an offensive foul on the previous possession — the Grizzlies chose to isolate Rudy Gay, who was being covered by Andre Iguodala, one of the two or three best perimeter defenders in the league. Gay was bottled up, picked up his dribble, and lost it trying to pass out.

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Beyond the Arc Sports

Postgame Notebook: Grizzlies 105, Knicks 95 — Homecoming in “We Don’t Bluff” City

CREDIT: LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

DSC_0955.jpeg

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.”