Thoughts the Morning After

1) First of all, I want to say how much I love the Blazers / Rose Garden. Portland is a small-market city with only one professional franchise that avidly supports the Blazers. A step ahead of the Grizz as far as young talent, Portland gives me hope as a Grizzlies fan...

2) What a game. The Grizzlies probably didn't deserve to win (21-34 FT), but did just enough down the stretch to come away with the victory.

3) If OJ Mayo is Juice, than it's freaking cold juice, because the kid has ice water in his veins. Watching Gay and Mayo on the court last night down the stretch showed just how mature this kid is in just his second year. Gay is so volatile, easily rattled when his shots aren't falling, leading to stupid frustration fouls, etc. Mayo? Just ice. He knows where he needs to be at all times, finds way to change the game on the defensive end, and has an incredible knack for putting himself in position to make big plays.

4) The Mayo steal on Roy might turn out to be OJ's Moment We Will Look Back On. It's one of those surreal, slow motion, "I can't believe he just did that" plays. You're sitting watching this game, and you're thinking, "Okay OJ, don't reach in and pick up a cheap foul, and just play solid D until Roy drives and hopefully we'll get help from Marc or Rudy." But Mayo is fearless, and I love it. (Note: this was a steal on Brandon Roy. On his own home court. Where he has single-handedly controlled fourth quarters, with the ball in his hands at all times, for the last three seasons)Who cares if he only made one of the free throws? It put Portland down one, and they had the pressure and had to force shots for the remainder.

5) Gasol + Z-Bo= Gazebo.
Special thanks to Jay Edwards for coining this phrase to describe the Grizz interior monster. From now on, Marc and Zach will be collectively known as Gazebo.

6) Lionel Hollins
This was a night where the Grizzlies came out anything but sharp. They lacked energy defensively, and were sloppy on the offensive end for most of the first half. But Hollins kept after them, using timeouts in timely situations and never letting the game get out of hand. I can't get over how well he handles this young team. And is there a better-dressed coach in the NBA? So cool, so calm, so PSJ.

7) We still need depth. Seeing Marc Gasol go down, the whole season flashed before my eyes. So far, we've been fortunate to have no serious injuries to the starters. Now, go knock on every piece of wood in your house until we make a move to add depth.

Round Town.