“Grit and Grind” was a form of basketball that characterized Memphis Grizzlies basketball for the best part of a decade. This work of underappreciated art was at its height from 2010 to 2016, as the Grizzlies routinely made the playoffs and were not far off from getting to the Finals.
When Dave Joerger was fired by Memphis after the 2015-16 season, many thought it was the end for Grit and Grind. David Fizdale was hired as his replacement and was known more as an X’s and O’s guy, which provided a stark contrast with Joerger and fellow previous coach Lionel Hollins.
The Fizdale experiment saw Memphis modernize schematically as Marc Gasol went from taking three 3-pointers in an entire season to averaging over three per game. Even the notorious post-up master Zach Randolph was used to create gravity in shooting sets. The experiment saw Memphis attempt to catch up to the rest of the league tactically, but the experiment ended thanks to Fizdale’s rift with Gasol.
The schematic modernization became irrelevant last season as Memphis was comfortably the worst team in the NBA for the last 60 games. Without Mike Conley and Marc Gasol the team crumbled, which led to an identity crisis. Tyreke Evans rebuilt his career and role players such as Dillon Brooks showed some promise, but there were very few positives at the Grindhouse.
This leads us to the 2018 offseason, where Memphis has made a variety of moves. Jaren Jackson, Jr. is someone I believe to be a generational talent, and he will have an impact from Day One as a defender. The Grizzlies followed this up by signing a steal machine—Kyle Anderson from the San Antonio Spurs. Anderson is a great defender whose offensive game is notoriously slow and measured which has earned him the nickname ‘slo-mo.’
All of these moves have created a popular take on NBA Twitter, and this is that Grit and Grind will be returning to Memphis. The idea comes from the fact that Memphis added three excellent defenders to go alongside Gasol and Conley who are All-NBA-level defenders. But this take completely misunderstands what Grit and Grind actually is. We need to differentiate between Grit and Grind as an ideology and Grit and Grind as a schematic style.
Stylistically, Grit and Grind is based on bruising post play and a slow half-court oriented style of basketball which works from the inside-out. Hollins’ Grizzlies team were notorious for running a three-out, two-in system, which coupled with the Grizzlies’ stifling defense forced teams to play at a pace they found painfully slow.
This is not to say Memphis will not be a good defensive team; I think they will be a top 10 defensive team with the potential to be top-five. But people are misunderstanding Grit and Grind. Memphis has a very modern roster equipped with stretch bigs and shooting wings, so running an offense similar to the one they ran under Hollins and Joerger would be highly counter-productive and the opposite of what suits their roster.
Grit and Grind to the new look Memphis Grizzlies will be more of a mindset than a way of playing. The Grizzlies will play hard every night and make things tough for the opponent, but offensively they should be able to implement a very modern system that has a stretch five on the court at all times.
Staggering Jackson and Gasol’s Minutes
Strategically the first thing that JB Bickerstaff needs to do is find a way to make sure that one of Gasol or Jackson is on the court at all times.
The Grizzlies are absolutely blessed in the fact they have two stretch 5s in Marc Gasol and Jaren Jackson. Many do not see Jackson as a full time 5 and although I think he will play minutes at power forward, the majority of power forwards in this NBA simply have to be able to play minutes as a center. By sheer logic, a team with two stretch 5s cannot be a Grit and Grind team, because it would be a complete misuse of personnel. Instead, Memphis should be able to run a modern offensive scheme for 48 minutes a night.
Gasol has exited the radars of many because of injuries, but he is still one of the more effective centers in the NBA. He was a legitimately good stretch five under Fizdale. It is no surprise that Mike Conley broke out as a top-tier point guard when he didn’t have two back-to-the-basket big men clogging the paint.
One of the things that excites me most about this Memphis team is they will be able to go from one extreme to the next. With Gasol in the lineup, the Grizzlies will force teams to go big or Gasol will simply shred them inside the paint and crash the boards heavily. But when Jackson goes in, the Grizzlies will be able to run ultra-small lineups with Jackson playing a Draymond Green-lite role.
A second unit lineup of Mike Conley-Garrett Temple-Dillon Brooks-Chandler Parsons-Jaren Jackson has the potential to create real problems. This instantaneous switch from a big to a small lineup is one of the reasons I love Memphis heading into this new season. Opposing teams will have to prepare for possible big and small lineups.
Finding shooting
The Grizzlies are lucky they have two stretch 5s because they eliminate so many problems. Naturally, there should be extra space for driving angles, but there still might be a lack of perimeter shooting on this Grizzlies team. Garrett Temple’s arrival for a pittance from the Sacramento Kings will help as he ranked in the 88th percentile as a spot-up shooter on a bad Kings team.
Outside of Temple, the Grizzlies’ wing shooting will need to come from MarShon Brooks, Wayne Selden, Kyle Anderson, Dillon Brooks, and potentially Omri Casspi. MarShon Brooks shot 59.4 percent from three last season in a very small sample size (19-of-32) and although that is obviously not sustainable, he is capable of spacing the floor and moving well off-ball. Selden showed signs in a disrupted campaign as he shot over 40 percent from beyond the arc, and he could turn into one of the more valuable bench pieces in the entire NBA. Kyle Anderson has never shot well from deep but makes his bread as a playmaker. His slow style of play actually fits well with the rest of the roster and he has a real chance to average around four or five assists per game this season.
The issue with a lot of the Grizzlies shooters is that they don’t offer a lot else. This means that there will still be a lot of impetus on Conley to create for the second unit, and they will need Anderson to improve upon his basic box score numbers that he put up in San Antonio.
Schematically it is unclear what Bickerstaff will opt for as he doesn’t really have much of a history to go on. He admitted that he ‘simplified’ things after taking the job from Fizdale because he simply didn’t have time to implement a new, complex system, and he found himself in similar circumstances in his brief spell as coach of the Houston Rockets.
It looks as if the Grizzlies are going to play at a slower pace as they added a guy literally nicknamed Slo-Mo to an aging roster. But many are trying to make a connection between playing at a slow pace and making a return to Grit and Grind basketball that simply should not exist. Memphis may well go back to a bruising style of offense, but this would just keep them away from the playoff hunt as it would not play to the advantages of the roster.
Pace and three-point attempts also do not go hand in hand; Miami and Dallas were both bottom five in pace but ranked in the top 10 for three-point attempts per game. Memphis has the personnel to create constant space on the perimeter and by staggering the minutes of Gasol and Jackson, they should be able to run a five-out system for 48 minutes a game. I cannot think of another NBA team who can do this and still maintain defensive stability on the interior. Most teams who go small do it at the expense of their defensive rating, but due to Gasol and Jackson’s prowess, Memphis wouldn’t have to do this.
Overall, Memphis basketball will be back next year—just not in the fashion people think it will be. Memphis is going to once again be a formidable defensive team, but their offensive style will not and should not have many similarities with the Grit and Grind teams. They are blessed with the personnel to constantly run a five-out system, and it is up to Bickerstaff to design his rotations to make this a reality.
Few may consider Memphis a playoff team but for me, they are a certainty. They have two All-Star-level players in Conley and Gasol and added a potential generational talent in the form of Jaren Jackson. Memphis will be fun again, and the NBA will be better because of it.
