It can be frustrating sometimes when fans and media give into easy narratives in explaining what happens in a complicated game involving 10 players interacting at a fast pace over 180 possessions. And then there are times when one team really does “impose its will” and its physicality on an opponent. The Grizzlies’ season-saving 92-80 win in Game 5 was one of those times, especially during the first quarter, when they ran up a big lead they would never surrender, despite the late-game scoring hiccups that are coming to define this series.

Don’t get me wrong: Lots of things contributed to this Memphis win — some fun Xs-and-Os designed to get the ball inside, the brief appearance of 2011 Zach Randolph, stifling perimeter defense that shut off the Clippers’ pick-and-roll attack and late-game injuries to the Clippers’ star players. But at a basic level, the Grizzlies committed themselves to outworking L.A. inside. Randolph fought harder against Reggie Evans’ fronting defense, and the Memphis bigs ran the floor hard, got into Blake Griffin’s chest early and overpowered him in the post.

Let’s look at some of the ways this happened:

• More screening action

One way to beat a fronting defense and generally open lanes  for entry passes is to get big guys moving around screens in the half-court offense. Here is the first Memphis possession of the game:

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Grizzlies coach Lionel Hollins wouldn’t be human if he weren’t frustrated, his team having blown a massive lead in Game 1 of their series with the Clippers and lost two other very winnable games in crunch time. He accused the Clippers of “flopping,” and then on Wednesday, he described Clippers’ strong man Reggie Evans like this, per Chris Herrington of the Memphis Flyer:

“His impact has been pushing, grabbing and throwing people out of the way.”

That’s an oversimplification, of course. Evans has been playing some spirited and effective post defense, and his ability to front the Grizzlies’ post players has made entering the ball a tough task for Memphis’ perimeter guys. He is a dynamite offensive rebounder, even without any subtle cheating. But Hollins is right to suggest Evans is throwing some well-timed shoves into his game, and if the referees aren’t going to call all of them, why wouldn’t he? He  wiped out Zach Randolph with one-handed hook of Randolph’s upper body to snag an offensive rebound in overtime of the Clippers’ Game 4 victory, and we caught him red-handed shoving Marreese Speights out of the way as Speights tried to set a pick for Mike Conley in Game 3.

These are blatantly obvious fouls that somehow go uncalled in an era when point guards can’t lay a hand on their opposite number during dribble drives. And it’s not all that unusual for officials to let pass such contact among big men or at least executed by one. Kevin Garnett is the master at adding a little extra oomph to every one of his interactions with an opposing point guard, and Kendrick Perkins in the Thunder’s opening round series created a driving lane for Russell Westbrook by simply shoving Ian Mahinmi out of the way, in full view of everyone watching the game. Utah’s Paul Millsap is another guy who will occasionally disrupt an opposing pick-and-roll by pushing the screener in the back and nudging him out of position to set a screen.

I’m going to keep singling these out when I notice them, or when alert readers flag them. My interest does not stem from some moral outrage or a vendetta against any particular player. Basketball is and should be a physical game, especially on the block, and part of being good at basketball is being able to withstand physical play. It’s more that I think the shoves are funny. They are just so obvious, out there in open space along the perimeter, blatant uncalled fouls that have a real impact on whether a team scores on a particular possession. I find it curious big men are so easily able to get away with them.

To wit: Step right up, Greg Stiemsma! Here’s Boston’s backup center laying a nice one on poor old Erick Dampier Tuesday night in Atlanta’s thrilling Game 5 win:

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Battling the Grizzlies’ rugged front line, Blake Griffin had 30 points and seven assists in the Clippers’ victory in Game 4. (Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images)

With about 5:40 left and the Clippers leading the Grizzlies by seven points in Game 4 on Monday, Memphis forwards Rudy Gay and Zach Randolph ran a pick-and-roll on the right side of the floor. The pick held up Gay’s defender, Nick Young, forcing Randolph’s man, Kenyon Martin, to slide onto Gay and chase him above the three-point line. Randolph rolled wide open into his sweet spot on the right wing. Randolph’s partner in bruising dominance, Marc Gasol, flashed toward the foul line, putting Gasol’s defender, Blake Griffin, in a terrible position, stuck as the only defender left to monitor two very good, very large players.

Gay took one lefty dribble backward, and with his momentum still moving him slightly toward mid-court, he threw a long bounce pass toward Randolph. The pass was a beat late, thrown with too little pace, and it bounced high off the ground. The play unfolded slowly enough for Griffin, an allegedly poor defender, to read it, dart over to Randolph, slice in front him and steal the ball.

On the ensuing possession, the Clippers went to Griffin on the left block against Randolph, hoping Griffin could use his allegedly unrefined post game to create offense while Chris Paul continued an extended stint on the bench. Griffin turned to face Randolph, brought the ball down to his knee level and faked a lefty drive to the baseline. Randolph leaned that way, and Griffin exploded back to his right and dribbled into the foul line area, drawing Grizzlies point guard Mike Conley off Mo Williams at the top of the three-point arc for some crisis management. Griffin flicked a pass to Williams for a three-pointer, dishing the last of his seven assists (to go with 30 points) during an important stretch in which the Clippers built a lead, on Griffin’s back, as Paul rested up for his late-game heroics.

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Last week, as Rick Carlisle discussed the very real dangers of “dirty” play, I pointed out a more subtle kind of “dirtiness” — the wily kind of rule-breaking veteran big men engage in all the time on the perimeter. The perpetrator spotlighted in that post was Kendrick Perkins, guilty of blatantly shoving Dallas’ Ian Mahinmi with two hands, moving Mahinmi out of position to defend a pick-and-roll and opening a driving lane for Russell Westbrook.

It was an obvious foul, a piece of illegal basketball activity that altered the game in one small way. Some two-handed contact is inevitable — and in some cases, allowed — under the rim, especially when big guys jostle for rebounding position. In a crowded scrum, it’s often difficult for referees to see who is doing what, and whether an arm that appears to be attached to one flailing set of body parts is in fact doing something against the rules. But out in the wide open spaces of the perimeter? Call the foul.

In the interest of fairness, here is Reggie Evans late in Game 3 of the Grizzlies-Clippers doing the defensive version of what Perkins did on offense last week (see the 18-second mark of this video, kindly uploaded by MrTrpleDouble10 of the Celtics-themed blog Red’s Army):

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What made the Clippers’ massive comeback Sunday night in Memphis even more amazing was how slowly it came at first, how impossible it seemed with about four minutes to go, and then how fast it actually happened. The Clippers were still down by 24 with eight minutes remaining, and they turned the ball over three straight times between the 4:20 mark and the 3:16 mark of the fourth quarter, seemingly blowing whatever chance they had of completing the rally against the Grizzlies in Game 1.

To pull off a comeback while playing such imperfect ball requires just about everything else to go exactly right, pretty darn quickly. A dozen little things added up to one historic rally. The Grizzlies’ offense collapsed, in part because coach Lionel Hollins sat Zach Randolph for nearly four minutes down the stretch, an understandable move (Randolph is still trying to get back into game condition and he looked shaky for much of the night) that nonetheless allowed Blake Griffin to guard Marreese Speights while Reggie Evans battled Marc Gasol for every inch of territory. Speights, never a “plus” defender, couldn’t handle Griffin down low on the other end. Tony Allen missed a put-back and was improbably exposed on defense when finally given the go-ahead to take Chris Paul. Other horrible things happened for Memphis.

But if you had to pick one factor that made the game winnable, it was this: The Clippers made a bunch of three-pointers in a really small span of time. Two-point buckets simply wouldn’t do; they needed threes, and they got them, thanks to a complicated mix of factors. Let’s take a look at the Clippers’ last four three-pointers, starting with Eric Bledsoe’s seventh three of the entire season:

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Tony Allen isn't one to just sit and rest when he's out of the game. (Joe Murphy/NBAE via Getty Images)

One time at another website, I listed the things that Tony Allen should and shouldn’t do on the court during games. The “don’t” section included things like, “Make any move that involves more than two dribbles.” Allen saw the post and didn’t like it; a fellow reporter told me that the then-Celtic was grabbing at press credentials before a game in 2009, trying to find this Zach Lowe character writing nasty things about him. Rule of life: You don’t want Tony Allen on your bad side.

I’m glad to report that we’ve reconciled. I chatted Wednesday with the Grizzlies’ 30-year-old guard — my pick for the NBA’s most entertaining player — about a lot of things, including the difficult job of being a perimeter stopper, his exuberance in cheering for teammates and the price he’s paying for missing open-court layups.

SI.com: Who’s the toughest guy in the league for you to guard?

Allen: Rudy Gay, because I guard him in practice. I’m not giving anyone else no kudos.

SI.com: Come on. You can’t name one guy on another team?

Allen: No way. I’m not going to say that. I’m all grit and grind down here.

SI.com: OK. Should we expect to see you guarding Chris Paul a lot during your first-round series against the Clippers?

Allen: I don’t know, man, but that might be a good assumption. It just might be. I can guard any position one through four [point guard through power forward].

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The Warriors, down by four with 33 seconds left, opted to not foul the Grizzlies and ended up losing. (Joe Murphy/NBAE via Getty Images)

On Jan. 12 in Oakland, Calif., Mark Jackson had his Warriors foul Dwight Howard so many times, on purpose, that the Orlando center broke Wilt Chamberlain’s record for most free-throw attempts in a game.

On Tuesday night in Memphis, Golden State’s Klay Thompson made a layup to cut the Grizzlies’ lead to four points, 98-94, with 33 seconds to go. Watching on TV, I glanced around the court, trying to find the worst Memphis free-throw shooter on the floor to see if the Warriors had any chance to force the ball his way.

Surely, the Warriors would foul. The general debate about tanking is not of much interest to me, but if there is one team that is indisputably happy to lose games, it is the Warriors. Other teams can improve their draft-lottery odds by losing, though the lottery is set up in a way that some teams can’t improve their chances of moving up all that much. The proposition is more black-and-white for Golden State, which either keeps its first-round pick or loses it to Utah if  the pick falls outside the top seven. (Note: The fact this pick conundrum stems from a trade in which Golden State acquired Marcus Williams makes it extra hilarious.)

The players on the court are playing hard, and Jackson has said again and again that he simply cannot stomach the idea of losing games in any fashion. But the franchise, by trading Monta Ellis and Ekpe Udoh for two players it would not use this season, engineered tanking from above. The still-unofficial decision to shut down Stephen Curry for medical reasons accomplishes the same goal.

But Jackson wants to win. David Lee plays hard. Charles Jenkins and Jeremy Tyler are fighting for their NBA careers. Thompson is playing to prove himself a worthy second option. And so the Warriors, down by four points with 33 seconds left on Tuesday, would surely foul.

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Gilbert Arenas may have to dial back his shot attempts if he's going to shoot 27.5 percent from deep, like he did last season. (Fernando Medina/NBAE via Getty Images)

Toss aside all the obvious jokes about card games and the Grizzlies assembling the league’s strangest cast of characters, and you’ll see one reason — and one reason only — why Memphis is not crazy to take a shot on Gilbert Arenas: He cannot possibly be worse than Josh Selby and Jeremy Pargo have been this season.

An addendum: Mike Conley Jr. cannot play 48 minutes per game, not even in the playoffs, where the Grizzlies have the potential to be a dangerous mid-level seed now that Zach Randolph is back. Conley can log 40 minutes per game when the stakes are high, but that still leaves eight minutes of point guard play, and the Grizzlies have essentially given up hope that O.J. Mayo or even Rudy Gay can fill those minutes capably in place of the Selby/Pargo duo.

The wild cards are obviously Arenas’ uncertain health and conditioning coming off a knee operation similar to the one Kobe Bryant underwent over the summer, and whether the Grizzlies are chasing a big name over a more capable option in the D-League.

For the Grizzlies, the question is always going to be whether they can score enough for their ferocious defense to give them a chance in the fourth quarter against the league’s very best teams. In working out that equation, every minute matters. Scoring something like 10 points in the 15 or so possessions the Grizzlies will have to play each night — at the absolute minimum — while Conley sits could absolutely cost them a close game, and one close game can cost a series.

The Grizzlies rank just 22nd in points per possession, and that number actually obscures how much a team that attempts the fewest three-pointers in the league has struggled to score in the half-court, where they just cannot space the floor consistently. The Grizzlies actually get a fair portion of their offense — a tad more than 14 percent of their possessions — via transition chances, and they have been very efficient in converting those fast-breaks; only two teams average more points per possession in transition, per Synergy Sports. The Grizzlies earn those chances through forcing turnovers on defense, something they do more often than any team, as was the case last season. (Memphis, as an aside, is on pace for the highest opponents’ turnover rate any team has put up since the 1998-99 lockout season.) Read More…

It’s time to give up trying to figure out the Western Conference and just enjoy the ride, as 11 teams battle for eight playoff spots, and two others — the Suns and Warriors — improbably lurk just one game behind the 11th-place Trail Blazers in the loss column. I can’t remember a season in which it has been so difficult to get a firm grip on a simple question: How good is Team X? This is especially so in a lockout-shortened season, when veteran teams may well be saving something for the playoffs.

We’re nearly 40 games into this thing, and I feel comfortable saying two things about the Western Conference:

The Thunder are clear favorites, but their D needs improvement. (Layne Murdoch/NBAE/Getty Images)

1. The Thunder, as we all expected, are the clear favorites. They’re 31-8, rolling to home-court advantage, and even if their scoring margin (plus-6.0 points per game) paints them as a team that really should be something like 27-12 and not all that far ahead of their conference peers, that scoring margin is still nearly two full points ahead of the Spurs’ second-best mark.

That said, the Thunder, as documented here and here, are riding a ridiculous wave of super crunch-time play that has pushed their record above where it probably should be. They remain a so-so defensive team, except in the final minutes of close games, when they turn into the 2008 Celtics. They struggle to find any scoring at all beyond their top three players; Oklahoma City piled up 115 points last night against the Suns, and only five of their players scored any points. Floor-spacing can be an issue, Russell Westbrook remains addicted to pull-up 20-footers in the first five seconds of the shot clock and the three core big men –Serge Ibaka, Kendrick Perkins and Nick Collison — are almost total non-threats on the pick-and-roll.

If this team really has another gear on defense, as perhaps evidenced by its crunch-time play, they might be able to waltz through this conference. If they’ve been lucky, they could be had. Read More…

Zach Randolph is reportedly participating in contact drills and traveling with the Grizzlies on three three-game road trip this week.(Layne Murdoch/NBAE via Getty Images)

The Grizzlies rank 19th in points per possession, averaging just one point per 100 possessions worse than the league average so far this season. And ranking nearly average has been a giant victory for Memphis, which lost its best player and offensive centerpiece, Zach Randolph, to a torn knee ligament just a week into this compressed NBA season. Memphis had already lost its best back-up big man, the quick and rangy Darrell Arthur, and it was fair to wonder how a team that barely scored enough to begin with would manage to score at all without the stronger half of its one-two interior punch.

After all, the Grizzlies don’t shoot threes, can’t space the floor, rank near the bottom of the league every season in assists and earned free throws last season at a below-average rate. This is a tenacious defensive team with a smart, burly center in Marc Gasol and perhaps the league’s greatest perimeter defender in Tony Allen. We knew they would work hard, and that their defense would help them stay in games; they lead the league in forcing turnovers, as they did last season. Rudy Gay was back from the shoulder injury that ended his 2010-11 season, but he was obviously rusty and unsure of himself, and it just didn’t seem like Memphis would score enough points to really push past .500. In the span of a week, injuries turned Memphis from possible title contender to possible lottery team.

Guess what? The Grizz are 22-15 having played the league’s third-toughest schedule, and Randolph is participating in contact drills and traveling with the team on its three-game road trip this week, per USA Today. No return date is set, but Randolph’s prognosis now looms as one of the most interesting questions of the remaining 30 games or so of this season. Memphis plays 12 of its next 17 games on the road, but the opposition isn’t daunting from start to finish in that stretch; the Grizzlies seem very likely to earn a playoff spot, especially with the Trail Blazers flailing, and if Randolph can even reach 90 percent of the level he showed during last year’s thrilling playoff run, this team will be dangerous.

Of course, nobody really knows when Randolph will play, and whether he will be ready to perform at a high level in the playoffs. The postseason is only about seven weeks away, and that doesn’t leave much time for Randolph to get his conditioning where it needs to be and re-integrate himself into a team that is different than the one he left in January. It seems extremely unlikely Randolph could reach a level anything like the one he showed last May; head coach Lionel Hollins himself has suggested it’s optimistic to expect anything at all from Randolph this season. Read More…