GRIZ MAULED:
Some guys wearing Memphis Grizzly uniforms lose 130-81 to the Houston Rockets.
HOUSTON—Grizzlies coach Dave Joerger had just emerged from a full timeout and only 10 seconds elapsed on the shot clock when he called for more time.
The whistle blew and Joerger stepped onto the floor Monday night for a 20-second break in the action to diagram a play. This happened less than five minutes into the Grizzlies’ 1 30-81 loss to the Houston Rockets in the Toyota Center, and a few more times after that.
With gunners Lance Stephenson (right wrist sprain) and Vince Carter (left calf strain) out and joining a long list of the walking wounded, Joerger figured it would be a chore to score.
He apparently wanted to at least be organized. But what the Griz are running on offense is as foreign to a cast of new players as they are to each other.
It was midway through the third quarter when starting point guard Briante Weber, who is taking the place of the injured Mike Conley (sore Achilles), tried to throw a crosscourt pass to recently acquired free agent Ray McCallum.
The basketball sailed high, out of reach and out of bounds for a turnover on a play between two players who met just three days ago. An injury-plagued Memphis team playing with three men on 10-day contracts trailed 102-56 early in the fourth quarter after falling behind 65-41 at halftime.
“I don’t want to beat them over the head with negativity about why we aren’t doing this or that,” Joerger said. “We’re trying to stay very positive. We’re going to lift them up as much as we can and keep the energy good and play as hard as we can.”
However, this ga me brought back memories of the Grizzlies’ 30-point loss to Cleveland on opening night and 50 -point drubbing five days later at Golden State.
Memphis simply labored to function cohesively on offense. Only that early-season version of the Grizzlies was intact. Of the eight Grizzlies unavailable against the Rockets, seven are rotation players.
Gri z for wa rd Matt Barnes said before the game that nobody wants to hear how shorthanded a team is, and the Rockets emphatically breathed life into those words.
Houston didn’t have a problem showing l itt le mercy.
The Rockets used 16 3 -pointers to bomb t he Gri z out of t hei r bui ldi ng a nd hold onto t he eighth seed in the Wester n Conference playoff sta ndings.
“Any win is a good win, especially in this league,” Rockets forward Trevor Ariza said. “It doesn’t matter if you’re shorthanded or not. This is a win that we needed.”
Ariza tossed in four 3 -pointers and f inished with 16 points while center Donatas Motiejunas’ 18 points led the Rockets.
Rookie forward Jarell Martin led the Griz with 17 points off the bench and Barnes added 14.
“We started off playing really hard together,” Martin said. “Fatigue got to us. Guys started giving up on plays on defense. We let them shoot a lot of wideopen shots. We’ve just got to come together and play hard. We have to have a mindset to go out there and grind.”
Houston scored 31 or more points in each quarter, and won the third period 32-17. Memphis never led. The Griz missed 10 of their first 14 shots and fell behind 16 points in the opening period. Their la rgest def icit was 53 points with three minutes remaining in the game.
Adding to the Griz- zlies’ woes on this night was that reserve guard P.J. Hairston left early in the fourth quarter with a left groin strain during a game in which the Griz shot just 29.7 percent.
“I thought this game meant more to those guys than it did to us, and they played like it,” Griz swingman Tony Allen said. “They took advantage of us being shorthanded. We played hard and fought. They were just the better team. ... We just have to go out and fight hard each game.”