Insider Insights: Grizzlies Blow 18-Point Lead to Lose to the Blazers… Again

The Grizzlies began the game using their league-leading 35th different starting lineup with Lamar Stevens making his first start alongside Jordan Goodwin, Ziaire Williams, Vince Williams Jr., and Santi Aladama. Despite the new unit, the slow start shooting the ball carried over from Friday night’s game as the Grizzlies began shooting 4-16 and fell behind 16-10 early on. Vince Williams Jr. helped the Grizzlies keep pace with 13 points and 5 rebounds in the first quarter as they trailed 25-20 heading into the second quarter.

After falling behind 28-20 to begin the second quarter, the Grizzlies responded with a 17-7 run to take the lead at 37-35. GG Jackson led the charge as the Grizzlies led by as many as seven points before leading 51-47 at the half.

The Grizzlies quickly extended their lead to 12 points early in the third quarter with an 8-2 run as they continued to use active hands on defense to create turnovers and turn them into transition opportunities on offense. The Grizzlies continued to pile on as they led by as many as 17 points en route to a 78-61 lead at the end of the third quarter.

After the Grizzlies extended their lead to as many as 18 points early in the fourth quarter, the Portland Trail Blazers used a 19-6 run to close the gap to 87-82 with a little under 5 minutes remaining. Ultimately, the Trail Blazers came back to tie the game at 95 with 1.3 seconds remaining to take the game into overtime.

Then the Trail Blazers eventually took their first lead since the middle of the second quarter at 97-95 with 3 minutes remaining in overtime and outside of another tie at 97, held on to finish their comeback with a 107-100 victory.

Now for the main takeaway:

Vince Williams Jr. the Scorer

When the Grizzlies went to the All-Star break, Vince Williams Jr. had a streak of 16 straight games of scoring double-digit points. That streak not only broke in the team’s first game after the All-Star break against the Clippers but became a norm as he scored in single-digits for three of the Grizzlies’ first four games after the break.

Well, something clicked in the first quarter last night as Vince scored 13 points to keep the Grizzlies in the game as they trailed for most of the quarter and shot 28% as a team. However, Vince Williams Jr. shot 4-6 in that quarter, and considering the team shot 6-21, he nearly made all of their field goals. Also, the 13 points he scored in the opening quarter was more than he scored in any of the four games before last night since the All-Star break.

As he was asked to play on the ball more, especially with the lack of point guards on the roster due to injury, Vince seemed to focus more on the playmaking aspect which led to an increase in assists but also in turnovers as evidenced by his 1.6 assist to turnover ratio over the team’s four games before last night. Vince Williams Jr. got back to his normal off-ball role last night and it showed in the scoring column, especially in the first quarter.

He finished the game with 21 points, 8 rebounds, 3 blocks, and 2 steals.

Start/Stop/Continue

CONTINUE playing with that same edge the team played with last night. Friday night’s effort was an outlier for this Grizzlies team and the word embarrassing was thrown out by Taylor Jenkins after that matchup. The team responded as expected with last night’s effort despite allowing a double-digit comeback.

Coming Up

The Grizzlies hit the road for a two-game east coast road trip beginning Monday at 6:30 PM CST against the Brooklyn Nets.

Final Quote

“Honestly it shouldn’t have got to overtime but when we get in those situations we got to find a way to pull it out” – GG Jackson