Larry Kuzniewski
My guess is that it’s no secret to you that the Sports Internet Content Industry is a big machine that continues to roll on, and that every game needs a preview, and a quick reaction, and a recap, and two or three good pieces of Extremely Viral Social Media, and a graded report card of how each player did, and as many other additional "pieces of content" as can be prepared in the wake of a basketball contest.
The dirty secret—that’s probably not even that much of a secret—is that sometimes there just isn’t that much to talk about. Sometimes there’s a whole game without the little moments of transcendence that make live basketball such a great thing. And maybe that’s a cynical approach to last night’s loss to the visiting Minnesota Timberwolves, but that’s the approach I’ve got to take, given that the Grizzlies are carrying a roster of 18 guys and 8 or 9 of them are still injured and not playing.
The Grizzlies played hard. Really hard. On defense, especially, they closed out on shooters with a ferocity not often seen. On offense, they were clearly improvising from a limited, scaled-back playbook, with everything happening off curls, lots of Horns sets, all designed to ease the mental workload for the new guys just called up from the D-League so they can play instead of overthinking.
Really, they did better than they had any right to after the first quarter, in which the Wolves outscored the Grizzlies 42-25, allowing Minnesota to shoot 66.7% from the field (and a blistering 5 of 6 from 3-point range). The Wolves continued to shoot well all night, while the Grizzlies didn’t; the Griz had to work harder than the Wolves in every phase of the game to make up for (1) the Wolves’ hot shooting and (2) said first quarter deficit. By the end of the night, Minnesota attempted 71 field goals to Memphis’ 100, meaning the Griz needed 29 more attempts to score 114 fewer points.
It’s an exaggerated version of the same problem the Grizzlies always have, though, as a team that can’t consistently hit 3-pointers and can’t really score easily in any phase of the game. Even when fully healthy, the Grizzlies have to work harder than their opponent to win. Without 5 of their 6 best players, they have to work proportionally harder, and there are two things about that:
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It’s not really sustainable for a full 48 minutes, as evidenced by the Grizzlies’ scoring drought to start the third quarter.
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It’s not really sustainable for the entire rest of the regular season, because a big reason the injuries cascaded on the Grizzlies in the manner they did was guys went from playing 15-20 minutes to playing 30-40. The increase in stress, and the need to be conditioned for that kind of workload, meant that of course the guys thrust into that role were going to get hurt—their bodies were unprepared for it even if their minds were.
Larry Kuzniewski
Lance Stephenson played last night for the first time since tweaking his wrist at Atlanta on Saturday. He finished with 24 points on 8 of 18 shooting. I don’t really put any stock in single-game +/-, but I do think it’s illustrative that he was the only Grizzly with a positive +/- rating at +11. The Grizzlies couldn’t do anything on offense without Stephenson on the floor. After the second half, the Wolves switched Tayshaun Prince (no Tayshaun rhapsodies from me at this point, folks, sorry) on to him, and Prince was able to use his length to contain Lance’s drives to the basket, either wrapping him up with those long pterodactyl-wing arms or funneling him away from the rim. From there on, everything got that much harder for the Grizzlies.
It’s a little exhausting for each of these games to have to be instructive about something. This roster is barely a functioning NBA team. Early in the game last night, I said they weren’t, but they hung in the game and proved me wrong. They may not be a good NBA roster, but at least they’re competitive with a decent up-and-coming young team. I still think they need to win 41-42 games to make the playoffs, and right now they’ve won 39. If they can’t beat Minnesota at home, and no one comes back from injury, it’s going to be impressive if they can pull off the requisite two wins. The schedule only gets worse. We’ll see.
Larry Kuzniewski
Up Next
- Tonight the Grizzlies take on the Bucks in Milwaukee. This is a winnable game, for sure, but the Bucks are pretty good at home and Giannis Antetokounmpo has been playing really well lately. I expect the Griz to have trouble with Milwaukee, and this might be a tough game (especially as a road SEGABABA) even if they weren’t falling down the injury well faster than an anvil tied to Wile E. Coyote’s ankle.
- Saturday night the Grizzlies are at home against the Clippers, the first time they’ve played the Clippers since November and the only time they’re playing in Memphis this year. Grizzlies/Clippers is usually a war, and with Lance Stephenson and Matt Barnes both on the Grizzlies now, it would be even more interesting, but my fear is that the Grizzlies are too depleted to make it the blood feud it deserves to be.
Then again, against the Clippers, there’s always the chance that Zach Randolph will return from injury by dropping from the rafters like this:
- Monday and Tuesday are a west coast road back-to-back against the Phoenix Suns (who beat the Grizzlies twice before they were completely injured, so now maybe the Grizzlies will win) and the Lakers (who are terrible, but somehow beat the Warriors). These might be the two most important games left on the schedule—games that are legitimately winnable for a team that really only needs two or three more wins to make sure they stay in the postseason picture. We’ll talk about that more once next week rolls around.
