Insider Insights: The Grizzlies’ Home Struggles Continue in Loss Against the Clippers

The injury bug continued to bite the already short-handed Memphis Grizzlies as the Los Angeles Clippers took a 2-1 advantage in the season series.

With the team’s many injuries, the Grizzlies trotted out their 20th different starting lineup of the season with Desmond Bane, Luke Kennard, Vince Williams Jr., Jaren Jackson Jr., and Xavier Tillman. After a slow start that saw both teams missing their first 7 field goal attempts combined, Tillman kicked off the scoring with the game’s first points. Then, Desmond Bane, Jaren Jackson Jr., and Xavier Tillman combined for 24 points in the first quarter as the Grizzlies led by as many as 7 points before leading 26-23 to end the first.

After the Grizzlies took a 29-25 lead early in the second quarter, the Clippers responded with an 11-0 run in the blink of an eye to take a 36-29 lead as the Grizzlies’ league worse second quarter scoring woes peaked early against the 7th best second quarter scoring team in the Clippers. The Clippers then proceeded to score more points (24) in the quarter’s first 6 minutes than they scored in the whole first quarter as they took a 47-37 lead with 6:35 remaining in the quarter.

The Grizzlies went on to pass their second-quarter scoring average (25.4) by scoring 27 points in the quarter but the Clippers torched them for 42 points to lead 65-53 at halftime. The Clippers shot 16-21 from the field in the second quarter to shoot 61% at the half versus the Grizzlies shooting only 41% from the field.

The Clippers continued that hot shooting throughout the third quarter as they led 84-65 before Desmond Bane left the game with an ankle injury with 5:25 remaining in the quarter. The Clippers extended their lead to as many as 23 points on their way to a 100-79 lead to end the third quarter.

The Grizzlies began the fourth quarter with their G League roster from early last season (Jacob Gilyard, David Roddy, Jake LaRavia, and Xavier Tillman) and Luke Kennard and went on a 9-4 run to cut their deficit to 16 points before Ziaire Williams replaced Luke Kennard to round out the full iteration of the Memphis Hustle from the early parts of the 2022-2023 season. That lineup mostly remained in the game (GG Jackson replaced Xavier Tillman at the 4:13 mark) to finish the game and played well scoring 40 points in the quarter but Paul George was too much to handle as he scored a season-high 37 points to lead the Clippers to a 128-119 victory over the Grizzlies.

Now for the main takeaways:

Vince Williams Jr.’s first game on the full roster

The rise of Vince Williams Jr. this season has been a sight to behold, especially coming off an injury-riddled rookie season that saw him struggle in his few chances on the Grizzlies main roster. Then, after appearing in only four of the Grizzlies’ first 12 games this season, Vince Williams Jr. solidified himself as a rotation player beginning with his defensive effort against Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and the Boston Celtics, and hasn’t looked back.

Now he finds himself with a promotion after signing a four-year contract with the Memphis Grizzlies earlier this week. He started his 9th game of this season against the Los Angeles Clippers after the injury announcements for Ja Morant and Marcus Smart and it included him being matched up with James Harden to begin the game. Harden would proceed to miss his only shot attempt of the first quarter with Vince as his primary defender.

When James Harden returned to the game to begin the second quarter with Vince Williams Jr. on the bench, he quickly produced three assists and four points in two minutes before Vince returned to the game and forced him into a turnover on his first possession guarding him. However, once a superstar player the caliber of James Harden gets in his bag it’s hard to stop him as the Clippers implemented ways to get Vince switched off of him which led to Harden continuing to cook in the second quarter.

Eventually, Vince Williams Jr. was switched on the hot-handed Paul George, who led the Clippers with 17 points at the half. The second half provided much of the same across the board for the Clippers as Vince Williams Jr’s first game as a full-time rostered player was one to forget as the Grizzlies had no answer for the plethora of bucket-getters on the Clippers roster.

Better Rebounding Effort

Rebounding was the story of the Grizzlies’ previous matchup against the Clippers in Los Angeles when Ivica Zubac dominated with 20 rebounds, including 6 on the offensive end, as the Clippers outrebounded the Grizzlies 54-33 in their 11-point victory on December 29th. That stat was a far cry from the team’s first matchup of the season on November 12th when the teams split a 41-41 tie on the boards and Zubac was held to 6 rebounds total, which included 0 on the offensive end.

With Bismack Biyombo now off the team and Santi Aldama out with a Left Knee Contusion, the Grizzlies looked to be aiming for a tall task facing this same Clippers team that included having both of those guys in the previous matchup that they were dominated on the boards in. However, Xavier Tillman had other plans to begin their third matchup against the Clippers grabbing 4 rebounds to lead the team in the first quarter as the Grizzlies gained an early 12-10 advantage to end the first.

As the Grizzlies went to their bench rotation, which included no big men, their rebounding advantage flipped the Clippers’ way as they outrebounded the Grizzlies 12-6 in the quarter to take a 22-18 rebounding advantage into halftime. However, Xavier Tillman, Jaren Jackson Jr., and Luke Kennard would combine for 22 rebounds to help the Grizzlies win the rebounding battle 46-43 in a game that got away from them due to hot shooting from the Clippers.

Start/Stop/Continue

STOP getting hurt. This is out of their control and it seems impossible now as the Grizzlies’ season keeps getting worse by the day with the injury bug that has them now only playing 2 of their 7 best players after Desmond Bane left this matchup with an ankle injury. The Grizzlies hold the NBA record for most players used in a season with 28 players used during the 2018-2019 season and this season could challenge that record as they have now used 19 players in a game with potentially more disabled player exceptions to come.

Coming Up

The Grizzlies remain home for the 2nd night of a back-to-back tonight against the new-look New York Knicks at 7 PM CST.

Final Quote

“Better days are ahead for us and this is something that we are going to learn from and laugh about in the future” – David Roddy