| That's More Like It! GRIZZLIES WIN! |
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| Written by Matthew Noe |
| Friday, 30 October 2009 21:31 |
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I don't know who these guys were playing for the home team tonight, but it wasn't the same guys who "showed up" to play the Pistons on Wednesday. Even "showed up" is being a bit generous. Tonight, however, while not a perfect display of basketball by any means, was a nice step forward for the new Grizzlies. Was it offense or defense? Shooting or rebounding? Passing?
Yes. All of the above. From the outset, it was not at all hard to tell that the team had obviously come together the last couple of days, and I'm sure Hollins melted a few eardrums in practice as well...the pertinent themes: -DeMarre Carroll looked MUCH more comfortable on both sides of the ball. Sure, he still pulled some rookie bonehead maneuvers (rushed an open shot, committed a couple useless fouls, etc.)...but he was asked to guard Chris Bosh, THE UNSTOPPABLE RASHO, Bargnani..all the way down to Calderon-and guard them he did, and guard them dirtily he did. Fought hard for every one of his seven rebounds. This guy ain't afraid of nothin' or nobody when it comes to physical contact. I'm thinking this guy might have made a pretty darned decent football player too, but I'm glad he chose the roundball. He hasn't come all the way around yet-I'd hope not, he's a just-out-of-the-egg rookie-but this guy's got enough heart for a whole team. When he learns NBA sets on O and D more and learns to harness his exuberance a bit more, watch out. -ZBO. He had three assists, and that still won't be enough for some people. 30 points. Is that enough for the naysayers? Sure, Chris Bosh lit it up too (he's just unreal, by the way), but Zbo played to his strengths as well as he possibly could tonight. He and Bosh, neither of whom is known for defense, roasted each other like...like...a couple of chestnuts over an open fire (yep, it's that time of year already..get prepared). It was nice to watch, especially since Randolph knew the team was going to ride him all the way into the lane tonight, and he did what he does so well within a team concept. Six of his seven rebounds were offensive, and a couple of those were from his own misses. I turned to Chip after one particularly sweet bullcharge-the-hoop-and-score-it move by Randolph and said "man, isn't it great to have a truly viable low-post threat back on the team?". -Active hands and MUCH greater motion and rotation on defense. There were still many occasions when various Grizzlies (Conley, Mayo, Carroll, others) dove under screens leaving a shooter with ten feet of open floor, but the presence of mind on D was vastly improved. What the Grizzlies did, rather smartly, was to mostly just let Bosh go with one defender on him...mostly. Throwing the occasional double-on-the-catch didn't really serve to break Bosh's rhythm, but it seemed to catch the rest of the Raptors off-guard so that they couldn't swing the ball just right, especially when Bosh finally came back in at about the 9min mark of Q4 (CB4 had been out for about seven minutes of game time at that point-not sure why, but Iavaroni was on the TOR bench...sorry, had to get one crack in on Macaroni). -Point guard play, both from Conley and Marcus Williams, was greatly improved. Conley had a nice 10/10 game, and still had much room for improvement. The big guys set some nice screens at the elbow, and Conley still showed (a time or two, anyway) an unfathomable desire to stop after turning the corner on the screen. GO TO THE *&^%$#$ BASKET, Mike!! You can, you just must. Much less noodling around with the ball at the top of the key-I'm sure Chris Vernon's systolic reading was much lower this game than last ;). OJ does not count as a PG, but he seemed much more in his shooter's rhythm tonight, and it showed in his body language on the court. As for the game in general, there were times when the lineups went WAAAAYYY past "small ball" and into "Ewok ball". Rudy and DeMarre were the biggest Grizzlies on the floor for a couple of stretches, and it worked out ok for the most part-one of the things that I like about that sort of setup is that any pick can be switched with no real penalty to be paid-the defense may not be better off after the switch, but you're likely no worse off either. What the smaller lineups also did was to allow the Grizzlies to run out in transition when it was smart to do so-not in a contrived way, but when it fit the flow. The best, thing, though? I love savin' the best thing for last...in the fourth, the Griz were down 88-80, and a Raptor hit a three, leading to the timeout by Hollins. After that? Do the math..the Grizzlies outscored the Raps 35-19 for the rest of the game. For such a young, unsure-of-itself-yet team to be able to do that was just marvelous. MAAAHHVELOUS. Oh. And Rudy's reverse putback jam in the early fourth quarter may just be the most insane thing I've seen him do on the basketball court...and I've already seen him do some pretty insane stuff. It was CRAZY BUSINESS. Loved it. Look for it coming to a top-ten-plays list near you. That's more like it Grizzlies. Sure, it still won't be easy to head out for five-in-seven out west....but this will take the nervous edge off anyway. |
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