Memphis Grizzlies: Taking Advantage Of January A Must

The Memphis Grizzlies are scheduled to play 14 games this month, none of them on consecutive nights. It’s a part of the schedule they must capitalize upon.

Saturday night, the Memphis Grizzlies couldn’t stop Rodney Hood in an overtime loss to the Utah Jazz.

The second-year swingman scored 32 points and made the clutch plays in the fourth quarter and overtime, while Memphis couldn’t throw a rock in an ocean from a boat in the extra session, going 1-for-9.

The loss dropped the Grizzlies to 18-17—pedestrian by their recent standards but still good enough for sixth in the watered-down Western Conference.

But it was the first game in a month where Memphis must capitalize on a favorable schedule if they want to climb back among the West’s best.

The Grizzlies will play 14 times in January. None of those games are on consecutive nights and 10 of the 14 are against teams that currently have losing records—including the Jazz.

Memphis finishes out a three-game road trip with games at Portland on Monday and Oklahoma City Wednesday before returning to the Grindhouse (FedExForum in Memphis) for six straight games—just two of which are against teams with winning records.

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The cupcake diet includes the 12-22 Denver Nuggets (Friday), the 16-19 Houston Rockets (Jan. 12), the 15-19 New York Knicks (Jan. 16) and the 11-22 New Orleans Pelicans (Jan. 18).

The Grizz will also entertain the Boston Celtics on Jan. 10 and the Detroit Pistons on Jan. 14.

They get a two-game swing to Denver and Minnesota and finish the month with three more home games, hosting the Orlando Magic, Milwaukee Bucks and Sacramento Kings.

Jim Boeheim has faced more daunting schedules in November and December.

The Grizzlies in many ways are a team that evoked memories of great teams of the past.

Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph are a throwback high-post/low-post duo reminiscent of Bill Walton and Maurice Lucas for the short-lived Portland dynasty in the 1970s.

Mike Conley is the sort of gritty, pass-first, defensive gem of a point guard that most closely resembles the role Maurice Cheeks played for the 1980s-era Philadelphia 76ers.

Tony Allen, meanwhile, is a perimeter defensive stopper a la Michael Cooper of the Showtime Los Angeles Lakers.

But what Memphis doesn’t have—and continues not to have—is the sort of player that teams use to find success in the space-and-pace era.

In a league where teams have currently averaged almost 800 3-point attempts through Jan. 2, the Grizzlies have taken 605, the fourth-lowest total in the NBA.

And they don’t take a lot of them because they’re not very good at the whole shoot-the-ball-from-behind-the-goalpost-with-an-arc-at-the-top thing. Their 192 makes are third-worst in the NBA, thanks to their 31.7 percent accuracy that is better only than the Brooklyn Nets (31.6 percent).

Though Memphis isn’t known as a running team, their 12.1 fast-break points per game ranks them right around the middle (14th) in the NBA, according to TeamRankings.com.

But seriously—they don’t call it the Grit-and-Grind for nothing, because what the Grizzlies do best is what they’ve done well for the last six seasons.

Memphis will defend the bejeezus out of you, bludgeon you inside with heavy doses of Randolph, rely on Conley’s slashing ability to try and create the space they can’t with 3-point shooting and the skilled big man, Gasol, neatly ties the whole thing together with his deft shooting and passing.

The problem is that the Grizzlies are what they are and what they have been is good enough to be a 50-win team in the West each of the last three seasons, but not good enough to get further than a conference finals sweep at the hands of the San Antonio Spurs in 2013.

Memphis has an old core now. Randolph is 34 and although he’s played the same old-man style of basketball since his early 20s, both his playing time and his efficiency are markedly down in 2015-16.

He’s playing just 28.8 minutes per game—the lowest since 2011-12, when he was limited to 28 games because of injuries.

His defensive rating of 107, per basketball-reference.com, is the highest it’s been since his first year in Memphis in 2009-10 and his Player Efficiency Rating of 16.9 would match the lowest mark of his career.

He is a minus on both ends of the court—playing minus-0.8 offensively and minus-1.3 defensively for a total of minus-2.1, the first time he’s been a net negative since 2008-09 when he split the season between bad New York and Los Angeles Clippers teams.

He’s signed through 2016-17 on a two-year extension with returns that appear to be diminishing.

The 31-year-old Gasol just signed a five-year, $110 million deal last summer while Conley, now 28, is in the final year of his deal, a five-year, $40 million extension that took effect in 2011.

Allen is 34, fellow wing player Matt Barnes is 35 and erstwhile shooting guard Courtney Lee is 30.

JaMychal Green, at age 25, is the youngest player who receives regular minutes.

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So the leopards aren’t likely to change their spots—the Grizzlies are what they are and, barring major personnel changes, will continue on that path.

They likely have enough to make one more run in 2015-16, but given their inconsistency through the season’s first 35 games, that run will likely be a short one.

The Grizzlies are soon going to have to pay the piper for drafts that have been bad (Hasheem Thabeet at No. 2 overall in 2009 is the worst, but they also whiffed on No. 12 overall selection Xavier Henry in 2010, the last time they picked higher than 22nd).

Their 2012 first-round pick, Tony Wroten, is currently unemployed. Jordan Adams has played 32 games in two seasons after being taken 22nd overall in 2014 and this year’s first-rounder, Jarell Martin, has played a total of nine minutes.

In essence, the Memphis Grizzlies are a team without much of a past—at least not in terms of playoff success with this core group—and devoid of much of a future, given the severely limited contributions of the two most recent first-round picks on the roster.

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And the present appears to be consigned to trying doggedly to delay the inevitable slide that looms.

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Taking Advantage Of January Schedule A Must

By Phil Watson | Jan 3, 2016

The Memphis Grizzlies are scheduled to play 14 games this month, none of them on consecutive nights. It’s a part of the schedule they must capitalize upon.

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