Schmeelk: Grizzlies Show There's More Than 1 Way To Play Winning Basketball
By John Schmeelk
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The NBA has changed. You can't win the way you did in the 90s. If you want a good offense, you have to spread the floor and employ dominant playmaking guards to run the pick-and-roll and surround them with a good roll man and three-point shooters.
This is how you win in the NBA, or at least that's what people say. It's one way and a popular one, but not the only one. That's why those who assume that the Knicks can't win unless they adopt that system aren't paying attention. Ask the Memphis Grizzlies.
The Grizzlies look like a team ripped from the 1990s. They play Marc Gasol at center, a 7-footer who controls the paint defensively, passes well and is a consistent mid-range jump shooter. Their power forward, Zach Randolph, is 6-foot-9 and 260 pounds, and though he has a good jump shot, he does not have the quick feet of many stretch fours and rarely shoots threes. He is a bruising post-up player and mid-range shooter.
Mike Conley is the team's best scoring guard even though he is their point guard. He averaged only 15.8 points during the regular season, but becomes a scorer in pick-and-roll sets down the stretch when he has to. Tony Allen has taken barely 30 three pointers this season, and averages just 8.6 points per game. He splits time with Courtney Lee at shooting guard, who barely scores in double figures. Jeff Green is the team's most modern player, a 6-foot-9 forward athletic enough to play either small or power forward.
Memphis plays inside out. It shoots the second fewest threes in the league at the second lowest percentage. No one shoots more shots than the Grizzlies in that pesky 8-to-16 foot mid-range area. They shoot the 12th-most shots in the league between 16 and 24 feet. That's supposed to be very inefficient. The Grizzlies also play slow with the fifth-most lethargic pace in the NBA. Yet, somehow, the Grizzlies still have the 13th-most efficient offense in the NBA, and that's without a top caliber offensive player who can put the team on his back for long stretches. With better talent, the Grizzlies could play the way they do and be a top 10 offensive team.
Though hardly identical, there are similarities between how the Knicks want to play and how Memphis does. You don't have to spread the floor and run up and down like the Warriors to win in this league. The Grizzlies just won on their home floor with their old-school offense and superior defense, something else Phil Jackson hopes to build here with the Knicks. You can still win running your offense through the post, whether it is down low with someone like Randolph or in the mid or high post with a player like Gasol.
Two players in the draft, Jahlil Okafor and Karl-Anthony Towns, fit those respective roles perfectly. Though Okafor needs to improve his range, his low-post skills could easily fill the Randolph role for the Knicks. Towns, meanwhile, has the mid-range jumper and defensive potential to fill the Gasol role. (Of course, neither player should be expected to play to that level right away. It will take time.) What Memphis has that the Knicks sorely need are two-way defensive players on the perimeter, like Conley, and defensive stoppers like Allen. Carmelo Anthony's presence already gives the Knicks a better pure scorer than anything Memphis has on its roster.
Of course, whether Derek Fisher can be as good of a head coach as David Joerger remains to be seen. Can he get his team to buy into him and play consistently great defense? Can the team be unselfish and share the ball on offense? Those are questions that need to be answered. But the bottom line is that the Grizzlies are a model for how you can still win in the NBA playing a different way. It's possible, and that's a road the Knicks will try to travel on as they begin this rebuilding process.
Schmeelk Snippets
- Both home teams tied their series up at 1-1 on Wednesday night because of their defenses. The Cavs tightened things up and made the Bulls look very sluggish. Meanwhile, the Rockets held the Clippers to just 44 second-half points after getting lit up for 65 in the first half. Getting stops the rest of the way will be crucial for both teams if they want to advance to the their conference finals.
You can follow me on Twitter @Schmeelk for everything Knicks, Giants and the world of sports.
