The Memphis Grizzlies will play the second game of a back-to-back set on Saturday night when they host the Miami Heat.
The Grizzlies (42-25) are coming off a 133-124 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers that snapped the team’s four-game winning streak.
As for the Heat (29-37), they’re coming off a far greater disappointment. Miami dropped its sixth straight game, 103-91 to the Boston Celtics on Friday.
The Heat will attempt to recover against the Grizzlies, but they’ll have to be more productive than they were at home against the Celtics.
Miami was tied with Boston at the half and trailed by only one entering the fourth quarter. But the Heat scored only 14 points in the final frame.
“We played and competed hard, like visually that’s what I want to see every single day,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “We’ve been doing that, not really in the Clippers game (a 119-104 loss on Wednesday), but we’ve been doing it. Against most teams, that’s probably going to give yourself a better chance down the stretch. Against Boston, it’s going to be a double-digit loss.”
It’s been a difficult recent stretch for Spoelstra. Since February, his team has been outscored by 126 points in the fourth quarter. No other NBA team has been as unproductive in the final period during that stretch.
Andrew Wiggins had 23 points on Friday and Tyler Herro had 19 points and six assists.
Spoelstra attempted to reverse the team’s fortunes with a lineup change against Boston. The Heat had started Wiggins, Herro, Davion Mitchell, Kel’el Ware and Bam Adebayo in the previous three games, but Spoelstra inserted Duncan Robinson for Mitchell and Jaime Jaquez Jr. for Ware on Friday.
Adebayo, Wiggins and Herro remained starters.
Robinson, who scored in double figures in nine straight games off the bench, was limited to six points in 26 minutes against Boston. Despite Robinson’s struggles, Spoelstra said the new starting five “was pretty fluid all the way through.”
For the Grizzlies, they welcomed All-Star forward Jaren Jackson Jr. back on Friday after he missed the team’s previous four games with a left ankle injury. Jackson had 13 points, four steals and two blocks in his return.
Ja Morant led the Grizzlies with a season-high 44 points against Cleveland, which won its 16th straight game. He has scored 20 or more points in 10 straight games and has been particularly productive during the past five games by averaging 32.8 points.
Memphis coach Taylor Jenkins said the Grizzlies made matters difficult by allowing 75 points in the first half vs. Cleveland, including 13 makes from beyond the arc.
“We could have been a lot better defensively,” Jenkins said. “We dug ourselves a huge hole.
“We had a much better effort in the third and fourth quarters. We needed that in the first two quarters against the best team in the NBA. I’m disappointed we didn’t come in with that frame of mind. We were playing catch-up all night.”
–Field Level Media
