December 7th - New Orleans Pelicans VS Memphis Grizzlies - 13-13
Back at home, taking on the Memphis Grizzlies to try and get back above .500! Currently 14-9, the Grizzlies have surprised a lot of people so far this year by being actually quite good, rather than apocalyptically bad like last year. They only need to win 9 more games this entire season to have a better finishing record than last year, if that illustrates the size of the jump they've made. Part of that is having Mike Conley back, but their rookie Jaren Jackson Jr has also been extremely good for them. Let's look at the team overall:
Offensive Rating: 24th
Defensive Rating: 5th
Rebounds per game: 30th
Assists per game: 21st
Steals per game: 8th
Blocks per game: 13th
2pt percentage: 22nd
3pt percentage: 7th
It's pretty clear from that what sort of team they are. If 3 and D was a team, it would be Memphis. They don't take a million threes a game, but they hit them, and they defend brilliantly. However, there are some obvious holes in their game to exploit. Firstly, their offense is not good. In fact, in terms of ranking in the league, their offense is as poor as our defense has been (both 24th in their respective categories). If we play even mediocre defense tonight, we should be capable of freezing their offense up without too much issue. Secondly, they cannot rebound. Their leading rebounder is the ancient Marc Gasol, followed by JaMychal Green and Kyle Anderson. Nobody is averaging double digit rebounds for them, and only those three players are averaging at least 5 boards a game.
Who are their key guys? One: Mike Conley. Conley is averaging basically 21/4/7 this season, and playing good solid defense, and most importantly, is not prone to mistakes. He doesn't turn it over a lot (in fact, Memphis as a team are ranked 2nd in the league with only 12 turnovers per game), and he doesn't really foul much either. Nothing he does is impressive, but he has no glaring weaknesses. He is, however, having a poor season for efficiency. Shooting only 42/35/81 splits, he can be stopped by a gritty defender. Good thing we have Jrue then, who might find Conley difficult to score on with as much ease as other guards, but who he should be able to the long, long list of guards he has locked up.
Next up is their ol' reliable, Marc Gasol. Averaging 17/9/4 on 45/39/71 splits, he's a little more efficient than Conley right now and can really shoot it from deep. Again, not turnover prone, but Gasol is slightly more likely to foul, averaging basically 3 a game. Other than that, I think everyone knows him as a player: he defends well, although he probably didn't deserve his DPOY and he's only regressed since then, but he's a reliable player for them and isn't likely to make mistakes.
Finally, of their players, I think the third one to watch is their rookie, Jaren Jackson Jr. He's averaging around 14/4/1, but is leading their team in field goal percentage by converting on 51% of his shots. Along with that, he's really their rim protector, averaging 2 rejections per game; this does have it's downside, as he's also averaging 4 fouls per game and is a little jump-happy. Much the same way that AD was earlier in his career, in fact.
The solutions look clear: they can't score well, so don't let them get easy opportunities. Play solid defense, and try and match their low turnovers: since they won't beat themselves, you can't afford to either. Run the offense hard and make sure to make smart passes, as they play the passing lanes well, but focus on crashing the offensive boards because they cannot really rebound well. With our big man trio, points in the paint and offensive rebounds should be easy wins tonight. Add their age to the fact that they play the league's slowest pace, we should be able to run them off the floor if we play hard.
Let's get above .500, #DoItBig.
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Originally Posted by Shrimpnose
