SACRAMENTO – Nearly an hour after sealing their galvanizing win over the Utah Jazz to open a two-game road trip, Marc Gasol and Mike Conley were still in peak rhythmic form.
From neighboring units in the corner of the visiting locker room at Vivint Smart Home Arena, Gasol and Conley laughed as one dressed and the other emerged from wrappings. They reminisced over the defensive masterpiece the Grizzlies painted in Monday’s 92-84 win over the Jazz.
And they also winced over a few breakdowns along the way.
Generally, they were pleased things played out the way they collectively envisioned in the team’s first road victory, one that could register among the bigger upsets of the early NBA season. All was good until a printout surfaced of the postgame box score.
Gasol whipped his head around and looked directly at Conley, who had turned to tie his shoes.
“Mike, you took 20 shots?” Gasol deadpanned, almost sounding like a spouse confronting a significant other about an expensive splurge from the couple’s joint account. “That’s an awful lot of shots, Mike.”
They both paused in silence to exaggerate this moment of drama. And then laughed again. If the television producers ever considered a reboot of 'The Odd Couple,' Conley and Gasol would be the perfect lead characters. As the longest-tenured set of teammates in the league, now in their 11th season in lockstep, Conley and Gasol have been together long enough to know when they’ve got a good thing going.
The challenge now is to keep it going. If one performance could define what the Grizzlies (2-1) aspire to be as a team this season, the win in Utah revealed just about every characteristic and ideal. Gasol set the early tone with an aggressive first half on the way to finishing with 18 points and a game-high 13 rebounds. Conley controlled the pace and scored 16 of his game-high 23 in the second half to close it out.
And in between, a resilient supporting cast locked in defensively, knocked down key shots and responded to every challenge to smother each run the Jazz attempted to regain control. Through their first two games, the Grizzlies played to the extremes. They looked slow, disjointed and, frankly, disinterested throughout a 28-point blowout loss in the season opener at Indiana.
Two days later, they were the complete opposite in overwhelming the overmatched Hawks with a 131-114 rout in the home opener. And at the time, one thing was obvious: these Grizzlies weren’t nearly as bad as they looked in Indiana, nor as dominant and complete as they played against Atlanta.
This two-game trip, which continues Wednesday against the Kings, would offer a chance for the Grizzlies to settle somewhere in the middle and find their balance early in the season. By winning the way they did against the Jazz, a team expected to compete for a top-four spot in the West, the Grizzlies showed that their ‘Return to Grit and Grind’ isn’t simply a nostalgic mantra. It’s a mandated mission.
Mike Conley #11 of the Memphis Grizzlies handles the ball against the Utah Jazz on October 22, 2018 at Vivint Smart Home Arena in Salt Lake City, Utah. Photo by Melissa Majchrzak/NBAE via Getty Images.
“This win really showed a lot of us just who we are,” Conley said of a defense that stifled Utah to just 35.4 percent shooting and a balanced offense that had four players score in double figures. “Beating Atlanta is one thing. But going on the road against a very, very good team in Utah, being able to do the things we did just shows that we are capable. It shows we have the talent, we have the guys who can create for one another and do things defensively, create turnovers and get out and run in transition.”
Bottling what went right in Utah and building on those things against Sacramento is the next step. The Grizzlies have been here before, to this place where they flash major potential by plucking off top contenders early in the season and then succumb to inconsistency, adversity and injury.
That 5-1 start last season included encouraging wins over Houston and Golden State. And the year before that, the 17-8 start was lined with wins over Golden State, Portland and Utah. If the NBA awarded ‘Best Team of the First Three Weeks of the Season,’ Memphis would be a two-time finalist.
The quest is to be finishers.
Showing a sense of consistency would be a start.
But these wouldn’t be the Grizzlies without there also being an accompanying dose of injury adversity. General manager Chris Wallace and coach J.B. Bickerstaff set out this season to build a veteran-savvy, deep roster that could withstand some of the issues that derailed the team in recent years.
That depth is being thoroughly tested already. Memphis lost starting power forward JaMychal Green in Friday’s home opener to a broken jaw that will sideline him for at least a month. Green’s absence pushed rookie fourth overall pick Jaren Jackson Jr. into his first career start Monday. In the first half of Monday's game against the Jazz, the Grizzlies lost starting small forward Chandler Parsons to right knee soreness. He will also miss Wednesday's game and is considered day-to-day. Monday's win also cost the Grizzlies the availability of forward Dillion Brooks, who had his best game of the young season interrupted by foot soreness that could keep him out of the next couple of games.
Parsons and Brooks received treatment Tuesday, and Bickerstaff said after practice that the shorthanded Grizzlies must dig even deeper into a roster of experienced reserves. Green’s injury already placed the Grizzlies in a spot where they might have to seek outside help to add depth to the power rotation. More setbacks could be detrimental, especially for a roster trying to gel with five key newcomers.
“We’re accustomed to it; this is no different than any other year,” Conley said of withstanding injuries. “Guys go down, and guys have to be ready to be next up. Guys are giving us quality minutes, even when they’re not sure if they’ll play.”
That was the case with Shelvin Mack, who contributed 12 points off the bench and knocked down two key three-pointers in the pivotal third quarter after Bickerstaff shifted to a three-guard lineup. It was also the case with Wayne Selden, who filled in for Parsons, played 21 minutes off the bench and dished the assist on Garrett Temple’s basket that gave Memphis its largest lead at 86-70 late in the fourth quarter.
“There’s a mental toughness to the group, there is a grittiness, there is a willingness to grind, all of those things we believe in to our core,” Bickerstaff said. “To be able to bounce back from where we started against Indiana, play the way we played against Atlanta, and then come back and win a completely different way (against Utah), it just talks about their makeup and their character.”
The pillars are certainly in place in Gasol and Conley.
“It’s worked for a while,” Gasol said of resetting the foundation alongside Conley for what’s to come this season. “We’re not a finished product, by any means. But I like the mindset of the guys.”
Now, it’s about sustainability.
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