| Blazers Play 48 Minutes; Grizzlies Play 24, Lose. |
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| Written by Matthew Noe |
| Tuesday, 10 November 2009 22:19 |
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It's already like a bad-trip version of Groundhog Day. Grizzlies get off to a good start, rebound well, and fail to stop anyone on the opposing team. Hesitancy matched with, paradoxically, a total lack of patience on offense. An unwillingness to balance help defense with staying with one's own man. In honor of everyone's favorite useless stat, I'm going to go plus/minus on this game. Plus -First, a particular play. Hamed Haddadi had what may be the smartest move made in the post by a Griz this season. He'd gotten trapped up and was about to get called for a Haddadi (AKA offensive 3-sec violation)...but he astutely looked around, saw DeMarre Carroll cutting past his man, and practically handed it off to Carroll for a super easy layup. Great consciousness in the lane. Great stuff, especially since the "glass jaw" metaphor has reached an apocolyptic culmination with a Thabeet fracture...which will lead to Haddadi seeing more court time in the near term. Come on Hamed. -Rebounding. The Grizzlies went on the plus side against a very good rebounding team. Randolph was his usual cleanup self, although he did have a tough time with the length of LMA. This has been one of the few aspects of the game where the Grizzlies have been consistently good all season. However...there is something about rebounding, especially on the defensive glass, that is a catch-22, and we'll talk about that in the "minus" area. -Rudy played some D against a really good player! I've been unafraid, as have many, to call out Rudy for outright slackage on the defensive end-but it seemed like tonight that he was in a well-anticipated position on Brandon Roy. Sure, Roy scored a decent bit-but Rudy did well. Roy hit a couple of kidding-me shots over Rudy's outstretched tentacles. He hustled around, through, over, and under screens around the elbow and just outside, and stayed with his man better than I've seen him do in recent times. Annnnnddd...the minuses -The emphasis on rebounding as it continued tonight. Stay with me here. On the defensive glass, of course, how is it a team gets a ton of boards? Gang-style rebounding in the paint. Oh, dear, wait. Where does that mean that the defensive players will not be? That's right, they'll be anticipating a shot, getting ready for that board...near the glass. They will, by and large, NOT be out on the perimeter guarding shooters. Just ask Steve Blake. He knows first-hand. -The defense of the team. Not "team defense", but the entire philosophy and execution. There is a complete lack of effort and knowledge on the Grizzlies regarding how an NBA team should go about balancing the need to watch one's own man with the need to help out on other players when needed. The timing of a double team, the aggression and positioning of both players when guarding pick and rolls, when to sag off a player and when to get close enough to count his fillings. It's so bad that it's hard to believe that it's all effort and hustle, and it's consistently bad. Sure, the Blazers mercifully kept it under the century mark tonight, but the second half of this game in particular was no better than the defensive debacle the Grizzlies have staged over and over already this young season. -The patented Grizzlies offensive-meltdown-after-the-first-option-disintegrates. The fault for this does not fall on one or two players (i.e. I'm not going to take this opportunity to hate on Rudy or OJ)-it happens inside, it happens on the perimeter, and it happens incessantly. Sure, the Grizzlies have scored a lot of points this season-but like a pitcher seeing a batter the second time through the order, I'm quite afraid we're about to see that offensive production drop faster than we'd all like to see as teams adjust to the Grizzlies' offensive schemes. Of course we'd all like to never see it drop. Duh. I'm risking drawing the ire of a certain co-blogger of mine with this next statement....but...GOODGODMIKECONLEYGETSOMEGUTIMPLANTSANDSTARTBEING What will happen in Houston? We'd all better hope that the Grizzlies can pound it inside-'cuz Ariza is gonna have something to say about Rudy, and Aaron Brooks and Kyle Lowry are going to be playin' those passing lanes hard.... |
Comments
Would you rather have a team with a 7'3" young shot blocking center like Thabeet, OJ, Rudy, Conley, Zach, all top draft picks,
or a team with marginal players like Brooks, Ariza, Carl Landry, Chase Budinger, Chuck Hayes David Anderson, Kyle and Shane?
A team without Yao, Artest, or McGrady.
Well guess what?
The Team With The Marginal Players has a winning record going into tonight's game with the Grizzlies.
The Team With The Young and Hungry Talent is 1-7.
So don't blame this on the Young and Hungry Talent.
Houston has a head coach with THREE HUNDRED more wins than losses. Three losing seasons in nineteen years of NBA head coaching experience. 79 postseason wins.
Houston has an owner, Leslie Alexander, who gave the keys of the franchise to a bright young genius of a general manager, Daryl Morey, an MIT grad, who had the revolutionary idea of using EVIDENCE BASED PRACTICES to assemble a team!
The real question is...
Do the Memphis Grizzlies have that kind of coach? Do they have that kind of General Manager? Do they have that kind of Owner?
Money spent on the Head Coach, money spent on the General Manager, by a Non-Meddling Owner, is the best return on investment any Owner can make.
All of the above Rockets mentioned above, COLLECTIVELY, make less than Zach, Allen, and Jaric.
There's financial management you can believe in.
And guess what?
Fans are paying good money to come and watch them play!
(That's called revenue.)
So, Mister Heisley, you have the option to do something unheard of.
Take that 16 million coming off the books in a couple of years and hire Rick Adelman and his 868 wins. Hire Daryl Morey and his evidenced based management.
And get out of the way.
And start counting the wins.
And start counting your revenue.
rectified as soon as I can....