1.) It confirms our growing suspicions of being a playoff (yea, I said it, PLAYOFF) team. We are 20-10 in our last 30 games. That is a long stretch of an inconceivable .667 win percentage. If we continue for the rest of this season at this percentage, we will finish with a 49-33 record. 49-33!! With that record, teams in the West have made the playoffs nine out of the past ten years. Well, you might be thinking to yourself, "Common Jumpstop, you're not looking at the whole picture. Yes, we have a good starting lineup, but we are not deep. How can you expect us to keep this up the entire season. We are going to wear down eventually." This rebuttal might be true, but the Grizzlies are looking to change this. They have added Lester Hudson as of recently hoping he might provide an offensive spark off the bench. Also, it seems like the new guys like Thabeet and Sammie Young aka "The Microwave" are getting better and better as the season rolls on.
2.) Our players are becoming individually more consistent. In the past three games, the starters' point production have been 23(Randolph),19,14,10,8(Gay); 21(Gay),20,20,18,12(Gasol); and 24(Gasol),24,20,15,13(Conley). As you can see, everyone of our staring 5 are becoming consistent and we are not always relying on the same guy to produce. If someone is having an off night (like Rudy was tonight) others have stepped their game up to compensate and help the Grizz win.
Finally...
3.) We are coming together as a true TEAM- an entity that is more important than its individual parts. Since mid-December I have seen our team grow a ton. We are no longer the selfish team we were last year. A lot of the growth can be attributed to the coaching of Lionel Hollins and the system he has us running, but I believe much has to do with the maturity of our players. I have watched OJ Mayo pass up a completely uncontested layup for the much needed crowd spark of a Rudy Gay dunk. I have also seen Z-Bo (previously considered a team cancer), on multiple occasions, stand up for a fellow Grizz after being fouled. I can specifically remember Zach getting in an opponent's face, backing up the other half of the Gaz-bo after being fouled. This brotherhood is what we have been missing and we have been wanting.
So, is it a little early to be even mentioning playoffs? Will we be jinxing our hometown team? I don't think so. We are young. We are hungry. We are well coached. We are DANGEROUS.
HUGE WIN! I'm down in Seaside celebrating MLK day, and I watched on League Pass. I was pumped the whole time. The biggest thing that fires me up is the fact that the Spurs came back and tied it at the end of the game. Grizz teams in the past would have folded and taken the loss, but not this year. We responded and won the game. Very encouraging to all Grizz fans.
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