Big game tonight for the Memphis Grizzlies, who you may recall went to the Western Conference finals last season despite hiring John Hollinger. 🙂
With a win, they crawl back within one game of .500 despite being without Marc Gasol for the past several weeks. With a loss, their uphill climb back to respectability gets a little tougher. It now appears the West is going to be an 11-team race for three spots, with the Pelicans falling out of the picture after the losses of Jrue Holiday and Ryan Anderson to injuries.
One matchup to watch extra closely tonight is Mike Conley vs. Reggie Jackson at point guard. There has been a ton of talk about how Jackson has performed admirably to keep the Thunder among the league’s elite despite the absence of Russell Westbrook.
But there hasn’t been much talk about what Conley has been doing lately — and there probably should be. The Grizz are 3-1 in their past four games — the only loss coming by 2 points to the Spurs in overtime. And Conley has been beastly, scoring 30, 31 and 21 in the past three with an assist-to-turnover ratio of nearly 4.0. He hadn’t scored 30 in a game all season until these past two games. His scoring average is up 4.5 points this season to 18.1, and his assist average of 6.5 matches his career high.
Is he All-Star worthy?
Probably not. But he is in good company, as the Western Conference is loaded with players with All-Star caliber talent who will not make the cut for the All-Star game in Memphis — as outlined in a previous post when asking the same question about DeMarcus Cousins.
But what if the Grizzlies begin a surge tonight by defeating the Thunder in Memphis, where the Grizzlies have stumbled to a 9-12 record (they are 8-7 on the road). By the time it comes time for incoming commissioner Adam Silver to name Kobe Bryant’s replacement, will Conley have put himself into the mix?
That was one topic of discussion in this interview on the Eric Hasseltine show on 92.9 Sports Radio in Memphis.
Enjoy.