BOSTON – For the second time this week, the Grizzlies will measure themselves on the road against a championship contender that advanced to the NBA Finals last season.
And for the second time this week, they expect to put themselves in position for a victory.
But there’s at least one major aspect that must change for the Grizzlies to achieve the desired outcome in Boston on Saturday that evaded them in Dallas earlier this week.
“Yeah, just finishing the game and playing the full 48 minutes without letting up,” Grizzlies swingman Jake LaRavia emphasized. “We had that lead at the end, but we don’t need to slow down. Offensively, we need to continue to play with that pace. And just continue to be aggressive on the defensive side.”
Through the first quarter of the season, the Grizzlies have shown they’re confident and competent enough to compete with the NBA’s elite teams. What they’ve yet to consistently reveal is the ability to close out games against them.
Another significant test comes Saturday against the Celtics (18-4) at TD Garden, where Memphis (15-8) has lost 10 consecutive road games against the defending NBA champions. That matchup comes five days after the Grizzlies held a 13-point lead entering the fourth quarter at Dallas and struggled to finish in a 121-116 stunning loss to the defending Western Conference champions.
In a bounce-back 115-110 home win Thursday over the Kings, the Grizzlies corrected some of the late-game mistakes that hindered them Tuesday against the Mavericks. Defensively in the fourth quarter, Memphis suppressed Sacramento to just 30.8 percent shooting and relatively limited the Kings at the free-throw line to just eight attempts.
The Grizzlies got a huge spark offensively from their reserves throughout the game, but especially in the fourth quarter after catalyst Ja Morant was ejected after he was assessed a second technical foul. The Memphis reserves accounted for 16 of the team’s 29 points in the final period, and the bench outscored the Kings’ reserves 60-15 overall in the game.
That was the outcome after the Grizzlies spent Wednesday’s film sessions and Thursday’s shootaround dissecting breakdowns that caused multiple defensive lapses and stagnant offense late in Dallas. The Grizzlies committed a rash of undisciplined fouls that led to Dallas outshooting Memphis 44-14 on free-throws, including a 26-3 edge in the fourth period.
On the offensive side, the Grizzlies got away from their up-tempo pace and failed to generate much of a rhythm. They made just three shots from the field in the game’s final eight minutes. The lessons learned from that outcome were plentiful – and they were applied quickly.
“Obviously, the other night, it was too many fouls, and we had to do a better job rebounding,” Jenkins assessed of the needed adjustments. “We can’t give teams those opportunities to shoot free-throws, slow us down and get second-chance opportunities. There’s still a lot more work to do. When we get to those three or four minutes at the end, we have to be better.”
What Jenkins witnessed against Sacramento was a different level of execution.
“We got on the same page,” Jenkins believed. “I thought the intention and the preparedness to the plan was at a much different level.”
The Grizzlies will have to raise the late-game intensity and execution to an even higher level to reach that evasive breakthrough in Boston.
They’ve had opportunities to secure impressive road wins previously this season and have fallen short almost every time in losses to the Rockets, Lakers, Warriors and Mavericks. The Grizzlies held double-figure leads in the second half in Dallas and Houston and were ahead of the Lakers by nine before faltering late in a close finish.
But Thursday’s victory against Sacramento marked the third time this season the Grizzlies have rallied from a double-digit deficit to get the win. And they’ve done it in different ways. The latest effort was fueled by depth for the Grizzlies, who posted their NBA-leading 11th game this season with at least seven different players scoring in double figures.
That second unit, consisting of Scotty Pippen, Marcus Smart, Santi Aldama, Jay Huff and LaRavia, registered between a plus-10 and a plus-30 in plus-minus impact. That essentially means the reserves completely dominated the game during the minutes they were on the court.
After struggling through some late-game mistakes in Dallas, Smart was among the first players to accept responsibility and take steps to improve at the next opportunity to close a game.
“We just came back from Dallas, where we were in a similar situation, had a chance to win the game late, but it got very chaotic for us,” Smart admitted. “We lost our heads a little bit, myself included. I’ve been doing this for a while, and it felt like déjà vu, and I’m like, ‘We’re not having this again. And we tried our best not to let it happen.”
They succeeded, and now will try to keep building on that progress.
“We had to find a way,” Grizzlies backup center Jay Huff said of a unit that ranks second in the NBA in bench scoring. “It wasn’t the prettiest game in the world, but we found a way to do it. This just ties back into our depth and just how any given night, somebody can have a game.”
Pippen agreed, and suggested there will be times throughout the season when the bench will have to step forward to lead the way. That type of boost will certainly be needed on the road.
“When the starters don’t have the juice that night, which it’s going to be like that sometimes, the bench just has to come in and carry the load,” Pippen vowed. “We’ve been able to do that.”
Still, Boston represents a different beast.
And if anyone knows how much a collective team effort will be required to escape with a road victory there, it’s someone who spent the first decade of his career donning Celtics green before he was traded two summers ago to Memphis.
A hand injury prevented Smart from playing when the Grizzlies made their lone annual visit to Boston last season, although he was honored by the Celtics for his career and community work.
He returns this time healthy and in a productive role as a leader off the Grizzlies’ prolific bench.
“I’m ready,” Smart promised. “I spent a lot of years in TD Garden. So, to come back and actually be on the other side of that bench, it’s definitely going to be a lot of emotions for me. But it’s a game, and I’m going to go out and do everything I can to help my team win.”
For the Grizzlies, it’s another test against a title-worthy team.
They’ll learn how their budding championship resolve measures up.