Instead, as they did last season, the Grizzlies reconfigured on the fly, leaning on their considerable depth to stay afloat without Morant. When Morant went down in late November with a left knee injury (that thankfully wasn’t as bad as it looked), it seemed like Memphis was about to be in deep, deep trouble. The Timberwolves May Have Something Here Is Big-Man LeBron the Answer to the Lakers’ Problems?
Despite the third-year guard’s heroics, though, the Grizzlies stumbled to a 9-10 start, largely thanks to a Swiss cheese defense that allowed a handful of ugly blowouts. The franchise point guard exploded out of the gates this season, pulverizing opponents in the paint, drilling pull-up 3-pointers, and looking to be well on his way to his first All-Star selection. But Memphis has been one of those teams over the past two and a half weeks, blitzing opponents by a monstrous 18.2 points per 100 non-garbage-time possessions during a scintillating stretch that has featured nine wins in the past 10 games … while, interestingly enough, not featuring Ja Morant. And, as it stands, they’re not they enter Friday’s play ranked fifth on offense and 17th on defense. (The seventh, the scuffling Lakers, currently have a negative net rating, but they also have LeBron James and Anthony Davis, so: still among the favorites.)Ĭoming into the season, nobody expected the Grizzlies-a young team that built off its 2020 play-in appearance by making the postseason proper last spring and losing to the Jazz in five games-to be one of those two-way top-10 teams.
It’s no coincidence then that, of the seven teams most highly favored by Vegas touts to hoist the Larry O’Brien Trophy come season’s end, six-the Nets, Warriors, Bucks, Suns, Jazz, and Heat-rank in the top 10 in both offensive and defensive efficiency. And more-balanced rosters stand a better chance of withstanding spells of poor play than those tilted primarily toward either offense or defense. But generally, teams that consistently crank it up on both ends of the floor tend to rack up a lot of regular-season wins, meaning higher playoff seeds and home-court advantage. It’s not a perfect measuring stick every so often, a flip-the-switch team like the Shaq-Kobe Lakers or the second-LeBron-era Cavs will crop up as the exception. There’s a pretty useful rule of thumb to determine the legitimacy of an NBA contender: If you’re in or near the top 10 in points scored per possession and in points allowed per possession, you can reasonably harbor hopes of making the NBA Finals.
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