Jonas Valanciunas the key for Memphis Grizzlies in high-stakes Play-In clash against San Antonio Spurs
Coverage of the Play-In Tournament continues late on Wednesday night with San Antonio Spurs @ Memphis Grizzlies, live on Sky Sports Main Event & Arena from 12:30am
Thursday 20 May 2021 07:18, UK
Truth be told, there has been no one area of the game in which this year's San Antonio Spurs have shone.
Limping to the barn with a 33-39 record and losers of ten of their last twelve regular season games, the Spurs ranked 21st in the league in offensive rating and only 17th in defensive rating, with distinct weaknesses in the playing rotation.
Notably, although Jakob Poeltl has stepped up to be an excellent defensive centre this season, the Spurs are short in the frontcourt behind and alongside him after the buyout and retirement of LaMarcus Aldridge, and in the backcourt, the lengthy absence of Derrick White is being keenly felt on both ends.
More notably, though, they have suffered from sporadic bench performances throughout the course of the season. Long-term sixth man Patty Mills still averages double-digits off the bench, but not in a particularly consistent way, and while Rudy Gay is a versatile frontcourt weapon, he too has been streaky all year.
Beyond them, there has been little, with Devin Vassell not hitting the ground running as a rookie, Trey Lyles not excelling in any one aspect of the game, and with Lonnie Walker and Luka Samanic both struggling to find their feet as well.
These inconsistent offensive contributions are most obviously manifest in the three-point shooting department, a distinct weakness for the team as a whole. On the season, San Antonio ranked last in three-pointers both attempted and made, finishing as the only team to make less than 10 per game in the entire NBA, and they also ranked 24th out of 30 in three-point percentage.
All six teams that finished behind them missed the playoffs. This is, as ever, the three-point era, and even though they have adapted to the modern ethos of spacing and small ball by playing DeMar DeRozan as a de facto power forward all year, the Spurs' outside shooting has not caught up to the norm.
On the plus side, that spotty outside shooting outfit will be going up against a Memphis Grizzlies team that, while a good defensive unit overall (ranked sixth in defensive rating), are not the best at defending the three, ranking 18th in both opponent three-pointers attempted and percentage made.
Instead, their best defence is to try and deny the shot altogether.
Ranking top in the league in steals and forcing the seventh-highest turnover rate, the versatility in the Grizzlies' rotation of defensive-minded players such as Kyle Anderson, Brandon Clarke and impressive rookie Xavier Tillman has been a highlight of a good season of internal growth.
This young and deep Grizzlies team covers ground on defence and takes advantage of the freedom they are given offensively, and so while it is true of any series that key to winning is keeping turnovers down and hitting open shots, those are going to be particularly key for the Spurs to do, given how their own turnover struggles (20th in the league in that category) and aforementioned outside anaemia jar with what the Grizzlies do best.
There may, however, lie a bigger problem for them going the other way. The biggest problem might be the biggest man on the court.
The antithesis of the small ball era, Memphis's starting centre Jonas Valanciunas has had an excellent season. Averaging 17.1 points, 12.5 rebounds and 1.8 assists in only 28.2 minutes per game, he has become one of the best "traditional" centres in the game today.
Valanciunas is the small ball punisher, the truly big centre with enough skill to be the match-up disadvantage, and a consistently quality producer on the court.
When Valanciunas is on the court, his remit is simple, yet his impact is significant.
An offensive rebounder extraordinaire, the big Lithuanian guards the paint, protects the rim a little bit, cleans the defensive glass, wins possessions for his team and provides offensive balance.
Adept in both traditional post-up situations (from which he shoots 57.8%) and even more so on the cut (72%), Valanciunas has a potent combination of size, touch, footwork and poise, and he has even added some new-school pick-and-pop range in recent seasons.
Largely because of him, the Grizzlies led the NBA this regular season in points in the paint. Worryingly for San Antonio, they ranked fifth-last at this. Of course, many of those points in the paint will have come from Ja Morant's athletic drives and dives, yet Valanciunas in the post and on the offensive glass provides a significant challenge that the shallow Spurs frontcourt is not especially well-equipped to protect. And his ability to screen defenders for those Morant drives, and finish off the resulting dump-off passes, opens up the game for others.
Perhaps more importantly, because of the nature of the Spurs' frontcourt, Valanciunas could play a bigger role than he may do in other series.
His weakness defensively comes from his slow feet making him vulnerable to face-up stretch-style opponents, but Poeltl, a limited offensive player in all areas and certainly from outside the paint, is not that.
Nor is his primary backup, the athletic yet inexperienced Drew Eubanks, and while Gorgui Dieng could potentially be a floor-stretcher at the five, the fact that Dieng was only recently bought out by the Grizzlies after a year as Valanciunas' backup says enough about who has the advantage there.
Against many teams, Valanciunas might be limited to a 15-20 minute player no matter how great he is on the offensive glass, simply because of how many he would give back the other way. In this game, though, the Spurs do not figure to have that sort of weapon. And if they turn to perhaps Gay or Lyles to try and provide that, Valanciunas' advantage on the interior becomes vast.
The NBA is a match-up league, the regular season is one giant scouting exercise, and the postseason is the culmination of it all. But one simple mismatch can prove pivotal. And so, for everything that has happened so far, it seems on paper as though the San Antonio Spurs' season rests on whether Jakob Poeltl can stay out of foul trouble.
It truly has been a strange season. Now, let's see if they can extend it.
Live NBA: San Antonio @ Memphis Play-In 3 19.05
