The Grizzlies hope to turn their season around with Ja Morant back in the lineup.
The Memphis Grizzlies won their first four games with Ja Morant, with the highlight being his which-way-did-he-go game-winner in New Orleans in his season debut.
But they’ve since lost four of five, with the only win coming over the Spurs by single digits. Morant missed the first of those games (a 37-point loss in Denver), but has been available for the last three defeats.
Below are five key areas of improvement for Morant and the Grizzlies as 2024 gets underway:
1. Room for offensive boost
A 5-3 mark with Morant is certainly a lot better than 6-20 without him. If the Grizzlies continued on that pace, they’d win 30 of their final 48 games and finish at 41-41, which could put them in the bottom half of the Play-In group in the Western Conference.
They could certainly be better than that, and there’s a lot of room for improvement on offense.
Grizzlies in games with and without Morant:
| Games | W | L | OffRtg | DefRtg | NetRtg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| With Morant | 5 | 3 | 109.2 | 111.9 | -2.6 |
| Without Morant | 6 | 20 | 105.8 | 113.7 | -7.8 |
OffRtg = Points scored per 100 possessions
DefRtg = Points allowed per 100 possessions
NetRtg = Point differential per 100 possessions
The 109.2 points per 100 possessions they’ve scored with Morant in uniform is well below the league average (115.0). Since Morant made his debut (and including the game he missed), only the Charlotte Hornets have been worse offensively than the Grizzlies (108.7 per 100).
2. Dead last from deep
Morant, of course, is an attacker. His 22.1 drives per game rank second behind OKC’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
The best way to complement an attacker is with shooting, and Gilgeous-Alexander’s team ranks first in 3-point percentage (39.7%). Morant’s team ranks last (33.3%), and that number is a little lower (32.8%) in the games he’s played.
Part of that is Morant himself, who’s 11-for-44 (25%) from beyond the arc, as well as just 3-for-13 (23%) from mid-range, unable to make defenders pay for giving him space.
3. More shooters needed
Through Thursday, there are 104 players who’ve shot the league average (36.6%) or better on at least 75 3-point attempts. The Grizzlies have just one of the 104, with every other team having at least two (the Thunder have six).
Desmond Bane is that one guy for Memphis, and has shot 10-for-21 (48%) from 3-point range off of Morant’s passes. All other Grizzlies have shot just 16-for-63 (25%) from beyond the arc when Morant has passed them the ball.
It’s not uncommon for him to get into the paint and draw multiple defenders, only to have a teammate miss a wide-open look…
The Grizzlies do have Luke Kennard, who has been the league’s best 3-point shooter (45.7%) over the last 3 1/2 seasons. He’s attempted just 65 treys this season, having missed almost as many games (23) as Morant. But Kennard has played 59 total minutes over the last three, with 37 (63%) of those minutes having come alongside the star point guard.
Only 12 of those minutes have come alongside both Morant and Bane. The Grizzlies have scored 40 points on 28 offensive possessions — 1.43 per — with all three on the floor. (Their opponents have been nearly as efficient.)
Four minutes per game with their two best shooters alongside Morant isn’t maximizing their offensive potential (perhaps for the sake of the Grizzlies’ defense). Two players who started their last game next to Morant and Bane — Marcus Smart and Xavier Tillman — have each shot 26% from beyond the arc. The third — Jaren Jackson Jr. (33%) — isn’t scaring defenses either.
They’ve played about 60 minutes (7.5 per game) with Morant on the floor and Jackson at the five but have scored less than a point per possession (shooting 13-for-45 from deep) in those minutes.
4. Cuts can work, too
The players around Morant don’t need to just stand around and wait to shoot 3s. They can also complement him by cutting behind defenders who have their eyes on the ball. We saw some of that in the Grizzlies’ loss to Toronto on Wednesday.
Midway through the third quarter, Morant snaked a pick and roll and had Jakob Poeltl engaged on the right side of the lane. And with new addition Immanuel Quickley worried about Bane drifting to the left corner, Smart cut baseline for a layup…
Early in the fourth quarter, Smart was the screener and Ziaire Williams was able to sneak behind a ball-watching Pascal Siakam as Morant attacked down the left side of the paint…
That dance can be tough to execute well because if the cut isn’t there, you can bring extra defenders into the paint and not give Morant a kick-out option. But the Grizzlies have to make the best of what they have, and putting pressure on the rim, both on and off the ball can be the best way to do that.
5. More defensive attention
They can also be better defensively. The Grizzlies ranked third on that end of the floor last season and, while they’ve seen the league’s biggest drop in points scored per 100 possessions (-8.0 from last season), they’ve also seen its 11th biggest jump in points allowed per 100 (+2.5). They’ve seemingly paid the price for losing four key contributors — Kyle Anderson, Dillon Brooks, Tyus Jones and De’Anthony Melton — over the last two years, while also dealing with long-term injuries to Steven Adams and Brandon Clarke.
The schedule is not going to make it easy for the Grizzlies to climb the standings, but games against the teams in front of them are important opportunities. They’ll play four of those teams in the next eight days, with a three-game trip starting with their game against the Lakers on Friday (10 ET, ESPN).
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John Schuhmann is a senior stats analyst for NBA.com. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on X.
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