Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports
The Memphis Grizzlies have finally figured out how to deal with the Los Angeles Clippers. The Grizzlies have challenged the Clippers with good defense from the Defensive Player of the Year, Marc Gasol and the aggressive Zach Randolph adjusting his game. On Thursday night, the Grizzlies fouled and rebounded, and they fouled absolutely everything. They played a style that the Clippers couldn’t match. As a result, they won 94 – 82 to make the series 2 – 1 Clippers.
On Saturday night, the Grizzlies and the Clippers play game 4. If the Grizzlies can continue to play the way they’re playing, the Clippers can’t execute the game plan the way they want to.
On Thursday, it was helpful that Chris Paul played a rare bad game. He had five turnovers on Thursday and they weren’t all due to the Grizzlies. However, if they can develop a method of making him turn over even once or twice, he becomes more humanlike and more beatable. The Grizzlies double team and triple team Paul consistently and they need to continue doing this. It’s worth it. The Clippers tend to leave Gasol open when he’s outside the paint. Gasol can hit 3s and the further away he is from the basket, the less effective the Clippers big men tend to be.
The Grizzlies-Clippers series has been a fouling game. It’s a great strategy for the Grizzlies because it makes Vinny Del Negro hesitate of playing his big men DeAndre Jordan and Blake Griffin. Del Negro will sometimes have to go with a smaller roster to avoid the foul method. The Clippers are no match for the Grizzlies when it comes to this. If the Grizzlies fail to win this game, it will be extremely difficult to go back to Los Angeles and win two games to force a game 7. It’s pretty safe to say that, if the Grizzlies don’t win this game, they won’t win the series.
With the recent injury of the Oklahoma City Thunder‘s Russell Westbrook, the Western Conference has drastically changed. The Thunder was the favorites to win the Western conference for the second consecutive year. That’s all changed now. It’s now more of a real possibly of winning the Western conference for every team in the Western conference playoffs right now.
