The Grizzlies made a Friday visit to to Staples Center, doing, as many teams do, the "LA double", with the LAL one night and the Clippers the next. Based on how the season's gone thus far, it would be easy for one to foresee that neither game would be an easy 48 minutes.

Was there to be any chance that the Grizzlies could integrate the word "defense" into the team's lexicon?

Am I crazy to suggest that such a thing is even possible?

Crazy, sure. But it happened in the first half. The Grizzlies actually, bless their little baby Grizzly heads, played some decent team D. Helping well in the lane, chasing shooters. The odd bit? The Griz were K-I-L-L-E-D on the boards. Slaughtered. Owned. However, the way things have been going, I'll take holding the Lakers under 38% in the first half and give up the advantage on the boards...for the confidence boost if for no other reason. Sure, Kobe did what he does, but the Grizzlies smartly let Luuuuke Walton shoot more than he should have and didn't let Fisher or Farmar get rollin' from outside.

Star of the first half surely ZBo-but not just for his scoring and being the sole Grizz with a great rebounding effort. ZBo did a VERY respectable job on Lamar Odom-sagged off him, but not too far...a nice effort from ZBo to keep Odom from getting his shot or his playmaking working at a high level. Did pretty well the whole game, as it turned out. Nice balanced scoring amongst the Grizzlies in the first half accounted largely for the Grizzlies' slim lead at the half-Rudy and Randolph both hit from inside and outside, making the Lakers work on D and thus interrupting their formidable offensive attack for the moment.

For the moment.

In the third quarter, it became evident that the Grizzlies had poked a sharp stick into a hole occupied by The Black Mamba. Lebron's good, there are some other good players...but there's just no one that approaches the skill/IQ/physical ability level of Kobe Bryant. Nobody. Rudy did his best to match, scoring 11 in the quarter on a variety of moves, but there's just not much a young team that plays horrible defense can do when Kobe starts rocking. Fisher hit a couple shots, Walton hit a couple, the Grizzlies started to turn the ball over, and down the bowl we go.

In the fourth, what has become a sickeningly familiar theme with the Grizzlies over the last several seasons played itself out once again-the Grizzlies went down by almost 20, then "roared" back to within eleven...then ran into a brick wall.

Turnovers were down, but assists were WAY down. Rebounding was, for the first time this season, a major thorn in the side. Once the second half began, the Grizzlies just seemed to realize that they'd done their absolute best on D in the first half (so they thought, anyway) and still couldn't quite get over the #24-sized hump, and folded up the tent and took it on to the house.

And it's been published in the Commercial Appeal that Michael "holder of all basketball knowledge" Heisley has now alighted in LA to talk to Iverson and the rest of the team about why the Grizzlies are doing so poorly. AWESOME. TOTALLY AWESOME (yes, Jeff Spicoli was a major influence on my teen years).

What will happen the second night at Staples?? Will Baron Davis go for 40? Will Kaveman go 20-20? Only time will tell...

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