But more broadly, Kieff contributed but didn’t come close to really swinging the Lakers’ hopes at any step of the way. I was more alluding to not thinking that Trevor Ariza choosing Brooklyn over us is going to decide a potential Finals against them–Kieff choosing the Lakers didn’t win them a title or cost any of his other suitors a title. He could have signed with Miami and (if he’d even been in their rotation) the Lakers still would have won w/ relative ease. The Lakers could have gotten someone like Anthony Tolliver on the minimum to do approximately the same role.

The question is what do you learn from it?

The Mavs loss was a bit of a wake up call and it took us some time to get to consecutive wins after that.

We have played better without a full squad, something doesn’t add up.

Hope is a momentary glitch.

1) Bad night from BOTH Kawhi and PG. It doesn’t happen often but it does happen.
2) Offensive difficulties. This led to nervusness and bad choices. We felt that we always had the game within reach until we didn’t. Grizzlies put it away.
3) Defense lacked energy and urgency. Watching the game, I believe it was mostly frustration. Our defensive stops didn’t translate into shots.
4) The bench didn’t really step up.

What could we have done differently?

Kennard seems to be on some kind of a “naughty step”, perhaps he could have played more in this game when we struggled to shoot the ball.
Not much I can say, we seem to have run out of stregth.

A looss by one would have the same impact in the standings but psychologically this was a bad game. Confidence shot down and opponents won’t be afraid of us.

I think it is time to mix up the starting 5, TL!

Why don’t we try: Bev-PG-Kawhi-Morris-Zu tomorrow?

or Mann-PG-Kawhi-Batum-Zu?

Let’s put this behind as soon as possible and get back to winning.

As far as buyout guys go, I’m not sure that our one RS loss to Brooklyn, or this RS loss to Memphis, really changes the calculus for guys. I mean, do you think anyone will pick us over LAL because we beat them opening night and they’ve now lost 5 of their last 6?

Buyouts always come down to fit/role/minutes and title odds. Brooklyn winning a 4-point H2H game vs us in the RS doesn’t change the latter–I think most folks would probably say the Nets are the favorites with or without that win. And the Nets are much shallower than us, meaning a buyout player is more likely to actually see some meaningful minutes and get a chance to make a real contribution for them. That, in my mind, has been why they’ve been the top destination for buyout players all along. Anyone who joins our team is just injury insurance.

Which leads to my last point–nobody who will be available on the buyout market is going to be a top-8 guy for us anyway. I’m looking forward to having better frontcourt injury depth than PatPat and Fi, but that’s more for the RS than the playoffs. I mean, last year we got the best possible buyout season PG in Reggie, and had to bench him in the playoffs. Most of the time what you get from buyout vets is bad-but-not-terrible emergency minutes, just a guy who your stars and coaches trust a little bit more in playoff minutes than your unproven 2nd round prospect sitting on the 3rd string. Buyout races feel huge cause they’re the story of the day, but a title has never been decided because a buyout guy chose contender X over contender Y.

average age of the Griz? What is it? 23? Let’s see what our 80 year old flabby asses get up tomorrow.