Going into post-game-report overtime to match a tough home loss tonight:

1. Outworked Inside: There are a lot of reasons the Grizzlies lost this game from some bad offensive execution down the stretch to an all-around third quarter implosion where the team squandered a double-digit lead. But the biggest reason is obvious: The Bucks beat the Grizzlies on the offensive boards 23(!) to 8, leading to a 28-12 disparity in second-chance points. Any way you want to slice, the Grizzlies’ frontcourt got badly outworked on the boards: 27 to 5 by the starting forwards; 11 to 1 on the offensive boards among starting forwards; 42 to 12 among the starting frontcourts; 16 to 3 on the offensive boards among the starting frontcourts; 49 to 23 among the entire frontcourt rotations; 21 to 7 on the offensive boards among the frontcourt rotations.

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Bucks second-round pick Luc Mbah a Moute, a 6’8”, 230-pound combo forward, grabbed 17 rebounds, 10 of them on the offensive boards, badly outworking and out-quicking Grizzlies forwards Rudy Gay, Darrell Arthur, and Hakim Warrick, all of whom are at least comparable and almost certainly superior athletes. In fact, Mbah a Moute out-rebounded the Grizzlies’ entire forward rotation 17 to 15 in half the minutes.

Bucks forwards Mbah a Moute and Richard Jefferson also bested the three Grizzlies forward at the foul line, with 17 attempts to the Grizzlies’ trio’s 6, and this from a team that, as I wrote in the pregame, leads the league in free-throw attempts allowed.

2. Inexperience Showing: Despite the goodwill generated by the Grizzlies’ more-competitive-than-expected start, tonight really illustrated how steep the growth curve still is for this team. Inexperience showed — among individual players, on the bench, an in the lack of cohesion that partly comes from not having played together very much.

You could see fragility and uncertainty in how easily the team unraveled during a 15-27 fourth quarter, in a couple of really bad possessions down the stretch (especially one in which the team failed to get the ball to Rudy Gay or O.J. Mayo and ended up with a contorted, flailing Hakim Warrick lay-up attempt), and in the second-guessing, eye-rolling, and confusion that was clearly disrupting communication among players and between the players and the coaches during those tough stretches in the fourth quarter and overtime.

This team may be better than most expected, but this season is still going to be a struggle, and 30 wins should still be a goal.

3. Mike Conley Looking Better: The box score may not reflect it, but team whipping boy Mike Conley probably played his best game tonight, using his quickness more aggressively and decisively than he has in any other game. Conley may have only finished with 4 assists (to 1 turnover), but in the first quarter, Conley used penetration to generate six points for the team that don’t register anywhere on his stat line. Twice he got deep into the paint and found Marc Gasol for point-blank looks where Gasol was fouled but didn’t make the basket. A third time, Conley got to the rim, was clearly fouled, and didn’t get a call. But he forced the defense to collapse and got the ball on the rim, where Gasol had an easy tip-in.

Conley also had three steals, including a crucial one that he turned into a coast-to-coast lay-up late in the fourth quarter while the Grizzlies were fighting back from an 8-point deficit.

There are still a lot of questions about Conley’s fit and his makeup. And his jumper, despite one mid-range make, was hideous again. But he’s a much better player than he’s shown so far and some (not all, not even most, but some) of his troubles are team-oriented. Reader Keith makes some astute points in the comments section of tonight’s game post, which I’ll consider a Subject for Further Research and react to later.

4. Rudy’s Struggles: Something else to file under Subject for Further Research: As much focus as there’s been on Mike Conley’s struggles, there probably hasn’t been enough on Rudy Gay’s. Because he’s averaging 20 points a game and has flashed some late-game heroics, the extent of Rudy’s poor play has probably been underreported. But his shooting percentages are way down, he doesn’t seem to have found a comfort zone offensively, and, much like Mike Conley, he isn’t using his athleticism to impact the game in other ways to the degree he should. The conclusion we need to reach, among others, is that all three of the team’s young perimeter starters still haven’t quite figured out how to play together well and that the coaching staff doesn’t seem to have a great handle on it either.

That said, even though Rudy isn’t really playing very well, he has cemented himself as one cold-blooded son of a bleep. In just over two seasons, Rudy has had at least three buzzer-beating game winners and at least one buzzer-beater to force overtime. That’s just from memory and is as many clutch makes as Pau Gasol had in seven seasons with the team.

Tonight, Rudy was having a frustrating, ineffective game, but with 2:10 to play in the fourth quarter and the team down 8 points, he buried a deep three-pointer from the corner. With 25 seconds to play, he drove strong to the hole to put the team up by one. At the other end, he guarded Bucks point guard Ramon Sessions on a switch, stole the ball, got fouled and hit both to put the Grizzlies up three with 20 seconds to play. That was seven points in just under two minutes to lead the team on an 11-0 run. He would have been the hero is Sessions doesn’t hit a three to force overtime. Rudy went on to score seven of the team’s nine points in overtime, so that was 14 of his 24 points (and 14 of the team’s 20) in the final seven minutes. His talent is immense, but it’s not flourishing in the team context right now, at least not consistently and certainly not efficiently.

The Jacob Riis Report: Has anyone done a better job with second-round picks the past two years than the Bucks? Not only did the undersized Mbah a Moute hustle his way to career highs of 19 points and 17 rebounds tonight, but last year’s second-rounder, Ramon Sessions, came off the bench for 20 points, 6 boards, and 4 assists, including a three-point dagger (his only long-range make of the game) with nine seconds left to force overtime. And these performances weren’t really aberrations. Mbah a Moute and Sessions have been strong all year for the Bucks.

Submitted by Chris Herrington on Sat, 11/15/2008 - 12:49am.
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