Tag: Tony Allen

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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 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

Bigs and Balance: Elevating Marc Gasol and sharing the ball will be the Grizzlies’ second-half path.

CREDIT: LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

Zach Randolph has bounced back from a rough January, but dealing Rudy Gay hasnt really changed his role so far.

  • LARRY KUZNIEWSKI
  • Zach Randolph has bounced back from a rough January, but dealing Rudy Gay hasn’t really changed his role so far.

The Grizzlies emerged from last weekend’s NBA All-Star break still on pace for the best record in franchise history but with many questions to answer over the season’s remaining 31 regular-season games.

If the team, projected to finish fifth in the Western Conference even before the trade of longtime would-be star Rudy Gay to the Toronto Raptors, slides further than that, then jettisoning Gay will obviously be seen — fairly or not, given the preexisting downward trajectory — as a turning point. But if the Grizzlies maintain their ground or better, the correction will have begun not so much with the deal itself but with the delayed acceptance of it.

The Grizzlies, from the head coach down through the locker room, wasted a few days pouting in the wake of the Gay trade, despite the fact that the team’s slide since November had coincided with Gay’s worst season since his rookie year.

The trade itself was a reminder of something we learned with the Pau Gasol deal: that, in a lot of quarters, any deal made by the Grizzlies that includes financial motivation will be seen entirely through that prism.

Make no mistake, with new controlling owner Robert Pera acknowledging some initial cash-flow issues in the immediate wake of his purchase agreement with Michael Heisley, there are legitimate questions about the wherewithal of the new ownership group. But those questions can’t begin to be answered until we see how they conduct the coming off-season. The problem with drawing such conclusions from the Gay deal, of course, is that “financial reasons” and “basketball reasons” are becoming increasingly inseparable in the NBA. Gay is set to make north of $19 million at the conclusion of his current contract without having ever made an All-Star team. In a league with strict rules that tie player payroll to methods of player acquisition, that’s a poor allocation of resources, no matter your market.

Nevertheless, the deal was disruptive, and the team seemed very fragile in its aftermath, with head coach Lionel Hollins seemingly incapable of making public statements without generating controversy and the team’s defensive effort looking near non-existent in the first half of a road loss to the Atlanta Hawks.

But the team rallied to play a competitive second half in Atlanta, and, afterward, team leaders such as Marc Gasol and Tony Allen responded with tough-minded comments that went beyond the usual locker-room platitudes. A day and a half later, Hollins used his pre-game press availability to finally end the mourning. He didn’t pretend to approve of the deal, but he did re-engage the season’s challenge.

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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 85, Kings 69 — Just Tony Being Tony

The Lead: After three consecutive 20-point losses and at least the suggestion of some internal discord, the Grizzlies needed a calming double-digit win. They got it tonight, even if scoring only 85 points against what is, statistically, the NBA’s worst defensive team doesn’t exactly scream “everything’s okay now.”

This wasn’t a focused, intense effort, but the Grizzlies did maintain control for most of the night, and this wayward, lark of a game was more entertaining in an offhand, NBA nerd way than the score suggests.

Man of the Match: Credit Tony Allen for an awful lot of the good that happened tonight. Competitively, Allen had one of his better all-around performances, scoring 14 points on 6-11 shooting, with 9 rebounds, 6 assists, 3 blocks, and only 1 turnovers. The rebound, assist, and blocks numbers were all season highs. The highlight was a no-look, over-his-head pass to Rudy Gay for a baseline dunk. Why not?

Allen was also in rare form as creator of chaos and joy. When he fouled Kings center Chuck Hayes, Allen looked to referee Ken Mauer, stuck his hand, fingers outstretched, in the air, and yelled, “Five! Five!” That’s the number worn by Grizzlies forward Marreese Speights, who was not involved in the play. Mauer gave the foul to number five.

After the game, I asked Speights if a teammate had ever gotten him in foul trouble before. Speights said, “You saw that?,” then rolled his eyes. “That’s just Tony being Tony,” he said, good-naturedly.

Tony Allen fouls Chuck Hayes and then talks Ken Mauer into giving it to Mo Speights. “Five! Five! Tony says, holding up five fingers.”

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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 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.