The Grizzlies' problems are rather simple
The Memphis Grizzlies' problems are simple -- and fixable.
“I’ve been saying it the whole time, I don’t know when it’s going to actually resonate. If we’re not going to talk on the defensive end, there’s no way in hell we’re going to win these games,” Derrick Rose said after Friday’s loss.
“It’s f***ing embarrassing” is what Marcus Smart laid into the Memphis Grizzlies after a 3rd-consecutive blowout game Sunday night.
This is where things stand for the Memphis Grizzlies.
Their 3-13 start has been demoralizing, both in terms of its luck and its play. It’s led to frustration. And ultimately, there’s division over the reasons for its slow start — dismissing one case over the other.
At the end of the day, when a stretch is this rough, multiple truths exist.
Yes, absences can be attributed. Take Steven Adams and Brandon Clarke (two of the team’s top 6 players the past 2 seasons) out of the equation, the Grizzlies are missing 2 other starters and 2 key bench players. That reduces the margin to error to essentially zero.
Yes, criticism of their play is warranted, their effort has waned the past week. After moments early in the season where they’ve clawed back, they’ve gotten smacked in the second half of these games, and it’s essentially a knockout punch.
The “gameplan vs. execution” level is a bit more nuanced than realized — as fans and media may pinpoint gameplan, while other media and players/coaches point to execution. It’s somewhere in the middle. Tweaks are needed to adjust to personnel and to systematic weaknesses. The communication and attention to detail are not at their standard, and it leads to massive runs and deficits against them.
All these truth exists.
Harping first on communication — a component brought to a brighter light from Derrick Rose. The team’s lack of communication highlights their lack of connectivity, which glares defensively. As the help and perimeter defense loom as points of criticism, the communication ties it together. With miscommunication on rotations, it’s easy to lose shooters that make them pay from beyond the arc.
“We got to do a better job talking and communicating, we talk all the time, it’s not just one guy’s responsibility to be the point-of-attack defense. It’s all five guys being on the same page, and we drill that in practice,” Taylor Jenkins said. “When we’re putting teams in ISO situations are clearly on one side of the floor, and we’ve got three defenders on the other side, and they got to be ready to rotate on a moment’s notice. Are they communicating to the guy on the ball, and then being in communication when we’re in our rotations. Who we are rotating out to shooters, non-shooters, whatever it might be.”
Communication has to improve, and it’s a team-wide effort.
“It’s on the guards, on the bigs, on the bench, on the coaches. It’s on everybody involved in the organization to make sure we’re on the right page, but there’s only 5 players on the court, so we got to take ownership and do it on both ends. That’s the first step to being a good team is communicating. So we got to get better in that area.” - Desmond Bane
And guess what? Communication is fixable.
“Communication is huge in this league, especially on this level,” Derrick Rose said. “Sometimes it’s intimidating if you’re hearing the opposite team calling out the exact play that you’re running. It lets you know everybody has the same common goal while they’re out there and that everybody’s on the same page. Right now, we lack that, but that’s something we can work on and an area we could improve in.”
Shifting further to offensive side of the ball, the flow is rather absent, especially as defenses load up on Bane and Jackson. The Grizzlies are the 29th-ranked offense in the NBA — 105.7 offensive rating — and they haven’t cracked 100 points in 3 games (an alarming trend in today’s NBA). There are simple symptoms behind their struggles.
Ball movement was a focal point in a recent postgame presser from Taylor Jenkins. They’re outside the top-10 in assists per game (24.1, 27th) for the first time in this franchise’s 5-year iteration.
“We got to move the ball better. I mean, still not good enough in the fastbreak. We’re missing too many opportunities to find open teammates,” Jenkins said. “We got to be a team... where we’re at right now, we got to be getting 30 plus assists, we got to be really moving that ball around. Obviously, we’re going to have some nights where the ball is not going to fall but we just got to have the energy to fallback.”
It’s not just ball movement, but player movement as well. The Grizzlies are finding themselves in these ruts where everything seems stuck. Stagnation is crushing this team at critical junctures of the game.
“It feels like sometimes we’re just stagnant. Guys off the ball aren’t really moving. We’re trying to get to the 1st action, when we’re at our best in the 2nd and 3rd action. I just think keep cutting, keep spacing the floor. A cut doesn’t mean you’re going to get the ball and lay it up. Maybe a cut opens the corner, a cut opens Des dribbling downhill or whatever. It’s just a matter of keeping the offense moving, keeping the defense going from one side to the other.” - Santi Aldama
Within these two elements lies the Grizzlies’ pace. The team is outside the top-10 in pace for the first time in 5 years, as they’re 18th in pace (99.35). It’s not necessarily about flying up and down the floor, but it’s more about identifying moments — after a rebound or inbound pass — to push ahead to teammates to trigger actions before the defense completely settles.
“Whether it’s full court pressure or something, just being able to run and have a consistent pace,” Jaren Jackson Jr. said. “We were really good in transition before, we just need to get a little bit of that back, and that just creates more energy with the ball. Doesn’t put so much stress on your half-court offense.”
Finally, it’s just effort and energy. The team showed resilience throughout the early parts of the season by coming back from large deficits to put themselves in better position to win down the stretch. Over the past 3 games specifically, it’s disintegrated. Houston, Phoenix, and Minnesota laid punches in the second half that ultimately wore down the Grizzlies into defeat. The team’s effort — one that Smart deemed “embarrassing” — wasn’t at 100 percent.
“It’s on all of us players to continue our energy and have our swag all the time. It’s something we’re working on.” — David Roddy
Even in a moment where a lineup is depleted, effort is the most controllable, translatable element in the game. At this juncture of the season, the Grizzlies can’t afford nights with questionable effort.
“We got to be better, it’s not necessarily about making or missing shots, or turning the ball over,” Bane said. “Those things happen throughout the course of the game. It’s just basketball, but our body language, our attention to detail on the game plan, execution.”
In a space where everyone speaks in absolutes on the Grizzlies’ problems, and how brash changes are needed to “fix” its horrid start, it really boils down to the simple things — the things that have gotten the Grizzlies through the prior 4 seasons with the same core, system, and leadership.
It’s effort, attention to detail, communication, and execution.
“You don’t want to lose a game on the simple things,” David Roddy said. “You don’t want to lose a game on beating yourself. We have to control what we can control.”
Those elements are controllable and gives you a fighter’s chance of a win each night. From there, it’s about how the ball bounces that game.
“We do all those things right, and the other team makes more shots than us. You tip your cap, you move on, but we can’t continue to fall short in certain areas.” — Desmond Bane
All of these simple problems are ones needed to be fixed with more urgency. The other simple problem requires a bit of patience: its inactive list.
People have dismissed those that have used the absence “excuse” as an invalid one to its slow start. However, look at who’s missing just right now: Ja Morant, Marcus Smart, Steven Adams, Brandon Clarke, Luke Kennard, and Xavier Tillman. 3 starters, the 6th and 7th man, and another playoff rotation player. Most teams would be absolutely dismantled in the Grizzlies’ situation (shoutout to Reddit for actually showing how each team would look, every team would be significantly weakened).
Games have to go on — that ties back into the “control what you can control” element. To suggest that being shorthanded isn’t a key factor in this slow start is a flawed rationale. To suggest that these returns won’t help the Grizzlies’ problems is foolish.
Let’s take out Brandon Clarke and Steven Adams for this exercise. Adding Ja Morant — an All-NBA offensive engine, and an automatic paint touch — will revamp this stalling offense. Adding Marcus Smart will benefit on both ends of the team as a defensive leader and as a secondary playmaker. Adding Luke Kennard is a reliable player for drivers to kick out to for 3’s off the bench. Adding Xavier Tillman is another backline defensive communicator that’s a chess piece with his assignment versatility.
That’s a simple truth.
Those guys back in the fold will help this Grizzlies team look way better than it’s played through this start. And at the same time, they have to tighten up these aforementioned controllable factors of their problems to get out of this rut.
“We just need to be more on the same page, and when you’re down bodies, everything is a lot more critical,” Jaren Jackson Jr. said. “Can’t make little errors. Can’t make little mistakes that you might get away with. If you have every single person with you, you have all your weapons. So, when you’re down a little bit, you have to be more precise, and the little things are going to matter a little bit more.”
Right now, the Grizzlies are like a truck stuck in the mud. Players returning ultimately serve as a tow on the way to pull the truck out of the mud. However, they need to rely on the present group to help guide, push, and drive the truck out the mud until the tow arrives.
The Grizzlies can start to accomplish a turnaround with their communication, execution, and effort. It’s hard to say how many wins it translates to with the state of the roster at this very moment. Those simple things could outweigh a talent deficit some nights — other games it may not, but you want to positively point at those factors. It’s fixable, too.
And it’s not all bleak. The Grizzlies are still within 4.5 games of a play-in spot and 6.5 of 6th seed with 66 games to go. While you can play with some math to see records pre/post-Ja to gauge where they can fall, it all ultimately reflects the amount of time to turn it around.
But it all boils down to how quickly the Grizzlies can fix their problems with the little things.