Ja Morant and Steven Adams both stopped injured, and Dillon Brooks sprained his ankle in the first quarter, but the Grizzlies still beat the Clippers 123-108 on the road to win 27-14 — five wins ahead of the Lone Rangers and 5.5 wins over the Lakers, remaining fourth in the West.
If the playoffs start today, the 23-year-old youth team will have home-court advantage in the first-round series, which no one could have imagined before the start of the season. And if you consider that their star has missed 13 games due to injury, this result is even more incredible.
How did the NBA's biggest dark horse this season come up?
The City of Grinding is back in the air
In the 2020-21 season just this past, the Grizzlies, as a young team, defeated the Spurs and Warriors in consecutive playoffs and successfully reached the playoffs, which shocked many people.
In the offseason, in order to improve the draft picks, they exchanged Valanciunas for Adams, which was considered a relegation of immediate combat strength. In addition, they also sent Grayson Allen, the starting quarterback who performed well last season, to Milwaukee from a financial point of view, raising suspicions that management was not immediately determined to seek a breakthrough in the record.
At the start of the new season, the Grizzlies' performance is also basically in line with this impression - they are in the first 19 games, 9-10, tied for eighth in the West with the Nuggets and Timberwolves, and look at the edge level of the playoffs. And during this period, the Grizzlies conceded 115.9 points per 100 possessions, and the defensive efficiency was at the bottom of the league.
Morant then suffered a knee injury and collapsed, thus missing the next 12 games. But the Grizzlies' change also began from this - in these 12 games, they played an impressive record of 10 wins and 2 losses, the first in the league in the same period, and thus reached the top four in the West, and never left the first half.
It is particularly noteworthy that in these 12 games, the Grizzlies have conceded only 98.1 points per 100 rounds, and their defensive efficiency has jumped from the bottom of the league to the first place in the positive number, and they are also the only team that has only double-digit points in 100 rounds in the same period.
Later, Morant returned, and the team suffered three consecutive defeats, which also made the 22-year-old young star very disappointed. However, after a short period of adjustment and adaptation, they quickly regained the feeling of winning, and immediately had another wave of 8 consecutive wins. In these 8 games, their defensive efficiency ranked second in the league in the same period, proving that the team's defensive winning pattern has been completely formed and will not change because of Morant's return.
If you take Morant's first injury as a division, before that, the Grizzlies were indeed just a mediocre team with a winning percentage hovering around 50% and lack of defensive toughness. But after that, they were the first in the league in defensive efficiency, the sixth in the offensive efficiency league, and the net victory over the opponent in 100 rounds was 13.4 points, beating the Jazz, Suns, Bucks, and Warriors, ranking first in the league! The record performance of 18 wins and 4 losses is also a ride!
In their short history, the Grizzlies have a proud team culture, and the reputation of the "Grinding City" dates back to the days of Zach Randolph, Mark Gasol, Mike Conley and Tony Allen. And it seems that this new Grizzlies has completely inherited the wind bones of its predecessors.
So far this season, the Grizzlies have shot 54.6 percent from the field, ranking 24th in the league, but their offensive efficiency of 111.9 points per 100 games is sixth in the league. One of the key reasons is that the active scramble and aggressive defense have not only successfully curbed the opponent's offensive, but also won more shooting opportunities for themselves.
According to statistics: the Grizzlies have averaged 13.5 offensive rebounds per game this season, completed 10.2 steals, and given their opponents 6.1 blocks, all three of which are the first in the league!
Although compared with the Lakers, Nets and other big teams, the Grizzlies are obviously insufficient, but they have ensured offensive efficiency through teamwork. He averaged 25.1 assists per game, 9th in the league with a turnover rate of 13.5%, 8th lowest in the league, and 7th in the league with an offensive error ratio of 1.87. For a young team whose star is only 22 years old, such a performance is impressive.
The unsung heroes behind Morant
Morant, 22, is striding toward an All-Star, but before February, the Grizzlies were a "civilian" team with no All-Star resume on the team.
Not only that, but the Grizzlies' average age of 23.7 is the second youngest team in the league after the Thunder; the average NBA is 2.5 years, the lowest with the Thunder; the average player's annual salary is $5.5 million, which is only higher than the Thunder and Pistons; even their manager Taylor Jenkins has no experience as an NBA head coach before officially taking over the team's coaching seal on June 11, 2019.
Arguably, with the exception of the budding Morant, this is a team of "unsung heroes". Therefore, their success is more worthy of respect.
Jenkins, born in 1984, not only did he not play in the NBA, but he didn't even have any college basketball experience. In the 2007–08 season, at the age of 23, he joined the Spurs as an intern in basketball operations before getting the chance to coach in the Development League.
Later, Jenkins followed Budenholzer as an assistant coach for six seasons at the Hawks and Bucks, until the summer of 2019, when he was hired by the Grizzlies as head coach. The unexpected decision was described by local media in Memphis as "a decisive moment for boss Robert Pera and the team's management."
In the two and a half seasons of coaching the Grizzlies, Jenkins' performance is obvious to all, whether it is lineup management, on-the-spot adjustments, or the ability to make players obey the command and serve the team. This past December, he was named the Best Coach of the West, the second time in his two-and-a-half-year coaching career. There are many reasons for the Grizzlies' success, but as the helmsman of the team, Jenkins is at the helm.
Of course, no matter how good a general is, he must also have brave and good soldiers to win the war. Although there are no big names in the Grizzlies, everyone can fight and all the people are soldiers, which is also an important reason why they have overcome various injuries and achieved today's results.
As a small market team, the Grizzlies lack the attraction of superstars, which determines that their team-building strategy should revolve around draft and "leak picking". In the current lineup of the Grizzlies, Morant, Jaren Jackson Jr., Bain, Brooks, Clark, Tillman, including this year's rookie Zaire Williams, are all personally selected into the league.
Jones, Anderson, Adams, Melton and others have not received enough attention in the previous teams and have been given a "new life" by the Grizzlies.
This season, Morant continued to thrive, Jackson finally recovered, Bane became a strong contender for the Fastest Progress Award, Brooks remained tough, Melton, Jones, Anderson, Clark seized any possible opportunity to flash frequently, even Tillman, Conchar, who were not rotating fringe players with unstable playing hours, were never disappointed when called by the coach.
While other teams are plagued by injuries and epidemics, and their employment is stretched, the Grizzlies are calm because of their depth advantage. Morant is the team's golden sign, but the unsung heroes behind him are the key to the rise of the Grizzlies.
The Grizzlies are like the 20-year Heat, and he's responsible for pulling up the ceiling
In the past few seasons, the NBA has had a number of dark horse teams that have played eye-catching performances, including the Heat of eliminating the Pacers just after getting rid of the lotto in 2020, the Bucks reaching the Finals, the Jazz, the regular season champion last season, and the Suns, who returned to the Finals after 28 years under Paul. Among them, the Grizzlies and the Heat have the most similarities.
At the beginning of the 2019-20 season, the Heat were also a team full of "civilian colors", except for the star Jimmy Butler and Dragic, who was already plagued by injuries and diseases, no one else had an All-Star experience.
In the team's core lineup, Adebayo, Nunn, Duncan Robinson, Taylor Hiro are all new people selected or dug up by the Heat themselves, and veteran Dragic makes way for the youngsters and returns to the bench, like Anderson of the Grizzlies today.
That year's Heat, relying on resilience to build a defense, organized the attack around the team, the number one star Butler as the arrow (Morant), the interior core Adebayo is responsible for assisting (Jackson), the flank a group of people to help grab points (Bain, Brooks, Melton), the depth is amazing, each can fight, and this season's Grizzlies have a lot of similarities.
The biggest difference between the two teams is that the young Morant has not yet proved that he can lead the team at both ends of the offensive and defensive ends like Butler, but the meaning of the two men to their respective teams is not too different.
The Grizzlies played 11-2 in a game without Morant, far better than when he was on the floor. Does that mean Morant is dragging down the team? Contrary. For the Grizzlies to achieve in the playoffs, Morant will play a decisive role.
In a way, the NBA's regular season and playoffs are two completely different games: to achieve a good record in the regular season, "team" is very important, like last season's Jazz, this season without Morant's Grizzlies, which is the lower limit of the team. But the playoffs are the stage for superstars, and when everyone values defense and is evenly matched, whether anyone can step up to solve the problem at a critical moment will often become the decisive factor.
Morant's presence, like Butler in 2020, could significantly raise the Grizzlies' ceiling. In the playoffs last year, he debuted on the big stage, in front of the top defensive team Jazz, averaging 30.2 points and 8.2 assists per game. What kind of magical performance will he have with a lot of progress this season? It's as exciting as the future of this young Grizzlies.