Crawford has had a very good offensive season for them and shot them into many more games than he shot them out of. However, he couldn’t defend a bush with a set of hedge clippers (no pun intended). That poor defense rears its ugly head regularly now. Come playoff time, it’s going to be an easily exploitable liability. Their answer at that spot, Chauncey Billups, is very difficult to count on due to frequent injuries and greatly diminished athleticism. Their other wings, Caron Butler, Grant Hill, and Matt Barnes can all help, but each possess their own unique set of warts.
I don’t want to make it sound like the Clippers are a total mess, but they’ve struggled to remain the team that won 17 in a row in December.
I don’t know if they’re deep enough up front to be better than the Spurs or the Grizzlies.
I don’t know if they’re athletic enough on the perimeter to be better than Oklahoma City or Denver. They’re a very good team with a very special star player in Paul who can carry them to achieve more than their ample talent would normally take them, but they’re playing in a conference with four teams who are as unique, diverse, and as tough as it gets.
The Grizzlies, on the other hand, have a definitive identity that they are completely faithful to.
Two weeks before the trade deadline, Memphis fans were beside themselves when the Grizzlies traded Rudy Gay to Toronto in a salary dump. Although Gay is an extremely talented player, he uses a ton of possessions, dribbles far too much, and his shot selection is more times than not, quite bad. When Memphis beat top-seeded San Antonio two years ago as a No. 8 seed, Gay was injured. Spot up shooting wings who feed the post and defend hard are much better fits in Memphis than “creators”.
The three players Memphis brought in for Gay all provide important roles.
Tayshaun Prince is a smart veteran who plays good defense and a good passer and shoots just well enough to keep defenses honest. Furthermore, he doesn’t need the ball a lot, freeing up more possessions for the Grizzlies to play to their strength, which is their two big men inside, Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol.
Gasol, in particular, has been outstanding this year. He’s been the best center in the NBA by a large margin. It has been a blessing for Memphis that he’s getting more touches with Gay gone. Also, Memphis is a superb defensive team (2nd in defensive efficiency), and Prince fits that profile very well.
The other two players they got both serve a purpose. Austin Daye gives them a 3-point shooter they really need and Ed Davis gives them quality depth in their big man rotation, which can be hard to come by (remember the Clippers).
This is important because their bench was a big question mark. Besides super sub Quincy Pondexter, there wasn’t much there. Darrell Arthur has been in and out of the lineup and Jerryd Bayless had been maddeningly inconsistent. Pondexter is back from injury doing his thing (spotting up from 3 and defending) and Bayless has found a role giving he Grizzlies their own version of Jamal Crawford. The difference is that Memphis doesn’t count on Bayless the way the Clippers count on Crawford.
So, who do I think gets the 3rd seed?
Obviously I’m not all that confident in the Clippers. They still have a four-game road swing ahead of them with three against the tough Texas teams. The Grizzlies have been terrific lately, but they have just enough tough games sprinkled in to keep them from staying ahead of a truly hot team — and Denver is a truly hot team. They’ve won 13 in a row after last night’s incredibly impressive win in Oklahoma City and the schedule is pretty soft the rest of the way.
The West’s biggest nightmare is about to present itself.
Beware the Denver Nuggets.
Brian Geltzeiler is the executive producer and co-host of SheridanHoops Radio, and the editor of hoopcritic.com. His father, Burt, was an elite college basketball player for Newark Rutgers in the late 1940s and was drafted by the Tri-City Hawks (now Atlanta) in 1950 by GM Red Auerbach. You can follow Brian, who lives in Livingston, N.J. with his wife and 4 children, on Twitter.
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