Grizzlies opener a bad start
Memphis needs to get better at rebounding
INDIANAPOLIS — Marc Gasol grimaced and hobbled off the court court after yet another Indiana Pacers put-back dunk early in the second quarter Wednesday night, and the thought had to be running through your mind, too: Could this regular season opener be going any worse for the Memphis Grizzlies?
The Grizzlies were getting doubled up on the scoreboard and their inability to grab a rebound meant the Pacers’ entire roster suddenly looked like a combination of Moses Malone and Dennis Rodman.
The good news? It didn't get much worse.
Gasol returned to the floor, Memphis played respectably enough the rest of the way to suffer a 111-83 loss at Indiana, and it now gets 81 more chances to get it right.
The bad news? The Grizzlies can’t afford to look that awful much longer.
Not if they want to legitimately compete for a NBA playoff berth, which is what management made clear is the goal, both with their
words and actions in recent months.
Not if they want to re-energize a fan base that still seems wounded from last year's calamity of a season.
The truth is the buzz this city felt during the Grit 'N Grind era is gone right now. Not forever, of course.
But there's a tentativeness to embrace this re-imagined version of the Grizzlies. The basketball savvy conglomerate that makes up Hoop City needs some proof that this plan, to stave off completely reconstructing this roster and make another push featuring Gasol and Mike Conley, is going to work.
Because as nice a gesture as it is that Chandler Parsons plans to pay for and distribute 1,000 free tickets to Friday’s home opener against the Atlanta Hawks after practice Thursday afternoon at FedExForum, it’s also a tacit admission by the Grizzlies that their home opener is nowhere close to being sold out.
It's why coach J.B. Bickerstaff 's comments at the end of the preseason, that this group will be a lot better on Dec. 15 than they are now, are worrisome.
Not because he's wrong. It usually takes time to incorporate eight new players and brand new systems on offense and defense like Memphis is attempting to do at the moment.
But a slow start to the season, a fragile fan base and a loaded Western Conference doesn't appear to equal anything good for Memphis.
Bickerstaff made the comparison during Wednesday's morning shootaround to last year's Utah Jazz, who began last season with a 7-8 record through the first month and ultimately found its identity to finish 51-31 to earn the No. 5 seed in the Western Conference playoffs.
Could that be a recipe the Grizzlies replicate? In a perfect world, sure. It just seemed a long way off from actually happening Wednesday.
"Obviously, we didn’t play as well as we would’ve liked but we’re a much better basketball team than we showed," Bickerstaff said following the loss. "We still believe that."
On opening night, though, the game was effectively over once Indiana, who is expected to be a contender in the Eastern Conference this year, went on a 14-2 surge to start the second quarter.
But it wasn't the outcome that seemed so deflating. It was that all the flaws you tried to overlook this offseason, all the flaws that emerged this preseason, were exposed for all to see.
The defense, which the Grizzlies touted as the reason they would go against the grain of the pace and space NBA, was bad.
The offense, which everyone predicted would be an issue, was worse.
And the rebounding, which was a problem last year, was even worse than that.
Gasol (13 points) and Conley (11 points) were a combined 5 of 22 from the floor, and the team was a combined 9 of 41 after halftime.
Parsons started and played 23 minutes, but he also couldn't stay in front of Pacers forward Bojan Bogdanovic (19 points).
Garrett Temple got the start at shooting guard, hit four second-quarter 3pointers, created off the dribble, and seemed to be a bright spot.
Top draft pick Jaren Jackson Jr. (10 points, 5 rebounds) also acquitted himself well as a 19-year-old in his first NBA game. But Dillon Brooks, last year's second-round surprise, only logged six minutes.
And Kyle Anderson, the franchise's big free agent acquisition, continued to look out of sorts with his new team. More concerning, though, is that so did Gasol and Conley.
“We’re still trying to figure out a lot, where our spots are and times to be aggressive," Gasol said afterwards. "It takes a little time. We have a lot of new faces and we’re unselfish by nature, and so we try to execute our offense and once the ball moves away from us, that’s what other teams want.
"We’ve got to do a better job of getting it back and making something happen, either for ourselves or somebody else," he continued. "We’ve got to be triggers for this team."
But how long can this team wait for that to happen? How long until the Grizzlies look like they expect to look?
The answers can't come soon enough.