Grizzlies/Warriors Postgame: Kerr, Jenkins, Green, Jackson Jr, Tyus Jones, Ty Jerome | March 9, 2023

Memphis is a good defensive team, so we wanted to spread them out and hopefully get some good shots early. We didn't do that, we were impatient early and we took some really tough quick shots and I didn't think we got organized well enough. So, I think in hindsight, probably got a little too cute with that. But we are where we are, we're searching a little bit on the road and took a gamble with that and it didn't pay off. You know that you guys in this road trip, Jonathan situation? No. Steve, what stands out to you as far as the defensive concerns? Well tonight, I thought there were plays right away where we didn't get into the ball and we were really soft on the ball and not being the aggressor. Had a couple of miscommunications that led to wide open. So it's disappointing that we just weren't connected and that's been the story a year. For whatever reason, our defense is really good at home and it's struggled on the road. So I didn't like the aggressiveness or the connection right out of the gates. And I was happy that the guys battled back two different times and got us back in the game. But it's tough to play uphill from down 20 after the first quarter. It's tough to, especially on an opponent's home floor. Steve, the last two games, I believe it was in the second half when you guys kind of were able to kind of close the Grizzlies out a little bit. Did you see something differently from them where you guys were able to battle, but they were able to kind of just persist a little bit? They just played much better and we played much worse. It's as simple as that. I think the Christmas game, we played pretty well throughout, controlled that game. The last game was kind of a little wild and all over the place and we were able to pull it out cuz we closed the game really strongly. And tonight I thought they just controlled the game from the start. As I said, we found our way back in a couple of times, gave ourselves a chance, but couldn't get over the hump. You guys kind of started rallying in the second quarter and then just unraveled in those last two minutes. I think you committed like four turnovers. Was that just like a lack of focus? Or what did you kind of, did guys let their guard down? Or what did you kind of see in that? Yeah, turnovers and some fouls too. I think they shot 16 free throws in the first half. And a lot of those came in the second quarter. But the turnovers, just in a rush, trying too hard to make plays. And instead of just getting organized and trusting each other, trusting the offense, thanks. Hey coach, I think Golden State went on 21 to 6 run in second quarter. Then you switched Dylan Brooks over to Kerry and it seemed to change the momentum of the game. How did that seem to flow the rest of the way? Yeah, I mean obviously they're doing some different things with their sub patterns. We had our best guesses going into the game. Obviously, we've got a lot of faith in what DB can provide us defensively on Curry, game plan, discipline, activity. So the minutes that he wasn't on him, he got loose a little too much for us. And obviously bringing him back in the game kind of changed it a little bit. But they went on a great run there in the second quarter, third quarter. And I think we had multiple 20 point leads and they whittled it down to single digits. But I was just proud of our guys staying in the course, playing connected basketball on both sides of the floor. We had a game plan that we instilled that was a little bit different than we've probably done in the past against them. Our guys did a great job first time executing it. These guys are gonna go on runs, it's just a matter of how you're gonna withstand that. And I thought the unselfishness on offense, 36 assists, ball movement was phenomenal tonight. Taylor, over the past month or so, you've mentioned having dialogue with Dylan on channeling his competitiveness in a healthy manner. Do you think tonight was probably the best example of that in quite some time? I think he's been doing a great job in recent games. And obviously, just given the history of this matchup and the personnel and whatever talk happens out there, outside the lines, I think he did a great job tonight. Cuz as I always say, he's gotta still play with his competitive fire. That's what gets him going, both sides of the floor. That's why he's a leader of our team, one of the leaders of our team, and how he sets a tone for us. I thought he did a great job tonight channeling that competitiveness and striking that right balance by pushing the buttons a little bit. Taylor, after a lot of bad news coming all at once for this team, what kind of lift can this provide? Especially the opponent that you had being able to come and beat them for their first time since knocking you guys out of the playoffs Yeah, I mean, a great team victory. I've said it all the time. I'll say it even now, the strength of our team is our togetherness. Guys out, we've gotta rally with each other. Thought we gave ourselves some chances on this road trip to get extra wins. Denver and the two LA games just didn't go our way. Our guys fight, they claw, they come out with the right mentality, the right spirit, and they play hard every single night. It's gonna give us a chance to win every single night. So we still got a lot to figure out for sure as we navigate the whatever it is, 17 or so games left in the season. And beyond, we just gotta keep getting better, keep putting in the work, keep trusting what we've been doing all season long. Guys getting great opportunities, they're learning on the fly and in different roles, different lineup combinations and all that. We just gotta keep holding it down just one day at a time. That's gotta be our focus. We can't be looking in the past or looking too far in the future. But our togetherness is what's gonna get us through. I hate to belabor this, but Dylan was on the walk off interview was asked, how do you proceed without John? And he said, this is our group going into the postseason. We shouldn't read anything to that with the respect of when John is or isn't coming back. Yeah, I don't know if that was just a quick comment. I mean, again, we're taking this step by step. We're hopeful everything works out, where John's back at some point. A timetable, I can't put a timetable on it. But until things change, we know this is our group, and we got a lot of faith in this group. And I'm just really proud of how hard they fought tonight. A two-part question for you, Taylor. First part, you mentioned adjustment to the game plan from previous matchups against Golden State, what particularly changed? And then second part, you played Jaren the entire first quarter. We haven't seen that much, just was that something that you planned going into the game? Or was the flow of the game, did the flow of the game dictate that? Or just how did you come to that decision? Yeah, working backwards, I mean, we're doing some different things with our big rotations. Obviously, with Steven out and BC out, and how we're juggling our starting lineup, and then our mixed lineups, and who our kind of, quote unquote, second unit's gonna be, with some of our starters, Desmy and a backup point guard. JJ's gonna play longer stretches, hopefully, first and third quarter. But tonight was also on the flow, I thought he was playing extremely well. So we kind of went with that. And I think there was some foul trouble that kind of forced our hand on some of our matchups and whatnot. And then from a game plan standpoint, I can't share that, we play them next Saturday. So some things personnel wise, and some things against their main actions that we kind of emphasized, made a couple of tweaks on. And we'll watch the film to see if it really worked out as we thought. And can we replicate that again in a couple of games? But obviously, we got a big one tomorrow, in two days against Dallas that we're gonna focus on. Hey, coach, I know you don't like your challenge early in the games. What was the rationale, even though it looks very obvious, why did you go for it that early? You should like to take it for the second half. Yeah, I mean, it's a tricky one. I mean, I won't get into, I'm four. If you win your challenge, you should probably keep a second challenge or something like that. That's on the table for discussions at the league level. They'll figure all that out. But sometimes I don't use my challenge late in the game, and there's timeouts involved. And when are you gonna lose it? What's the odds that they are? And when I saw the replay up, and then I confirmed with our coaches, it was pretty obvious to me. Maybe there was minor contact, but not worthy of a shooting foul. And I was gonna give him three free throws to try to start a run. And luckily, we got the playover turn, and we scored on the next possession. So sometimes it's just a gut call, and in that moment, I felt like that was the right thing to do. Great, thanks everyone, appreciate it. Y'all were able to come back a couple of times. What was the difference in not being able to get over the hump both those times that y'all were, at least maybe to make a rally in this game? We just weren't locked in. Even some of the threes they missed, it's the fourth quarter, and they're taking a side out of bounds, and we give a wide open corner three. We just really weren't locked in for 48 minutes, too many open shots, too many miscommunications, throwing the ball over the place. So we just weren't locked in for 48 minutes. When you say you weren't locked in, what is a contributing factor to that? Is that a leadership thing? You talked last game about being disconnected. It just seems like that's been a trend all season. It's definitely not a leadership thing. I mean, we got great leaders. Yeah, I don't know why, especially it keeps happening to us on the road. I honestly don't know why, because if we knew why we would try to fix it, you know what I mean? But we've been struggling on the road all year, so I don't know. All good, appreciate it. How big of an issue were the turnovers tonight, especially late in the second quarter? You guys had all that momentum and then had four within two minutes. Yeah, no, some of them were just like the one we're taking it out under the basket and Dylan Brooks gets to lay up. I don't know. I just feel like when you're trying to win a game on the road, we've been struggling all year. We got to limit plays like that, but it's not one play. It's not two plays that are going to lose the game. It's like I say, it's 48 minutes and we didn't start strong and throw ourselves in a hole. Then you fight back and you got to be really sharp when you're fighting back. We just had too many little slip ups while we were coming back. I thought it was solid. I didn't think it was crazy. It was pretty good. It seems like at the start of the second quarter, you guys really found something with that lineup of you, Steph, Andre, PBJ, and I want to say Draymond too. What did you like about that group and what clicked during that? I think you guys had like a 19-5 run, cut it back to six. What was clicking during that portion of the game? We finally got some stops. That allowed us to run and loosen their defense up a little bit. It's hard when you keep taking the ball to bounds and they're setting up in the half court. They got good run protection. They got guys that are aggressive on the perimeter. So it's tough when you keep walking the ball to court. You have to take the ball out. We finally got some stops and we can run. I mean, it doesn't really matter who's in the court. We're pretty hard to guard. Ties, I'm sure like pretty much most of us you heard. Draymond's comments in regard to Dylan Brooks yesterday when he was speaking on his podcast just as a teammate. From that perspective, when you hear someone in the NBA, one of your peers, speak on your teammates like that and you play them the next day, is there any extra motivation kind of to have Dylan Brooks' back when you step on that floor the next day? He most definitely want to have his back. So yes, to answer that part of your question. Other than that, I mean, we have all the motivation that we need playing this team, just as is, just the history that we got with them. It's always a battle. It's always an intense matchup. And then we have all the motivation we need internally, just trying to figure things out, trying to, needing to win, having been playing our best ball, coming off the road trip, things like that. Yes and no. You hear the comments, stuff like that. But at the same time, you try to just stay locked in and focused on what we need to be focused on. But we always have our teammates back. Everyone in that locker room has each other's back, no matter what. So at the end of the day, yeah, we wanted to have his back. The Brandon and the John News both happened, you know, bang, bang right there before those two games in Los Angeles. Did you feel like the team sort of found its footing immediately with that? Or did it take you a few days and, you know, having a little bit of time and getting back home, did that help with that? Yeah, I think it's a gradual thing. Obviously, in this league, everything is a quick turnaround. You have a game every other day, if not back to back. So it was a quick turnaround for us. But yeah, it's just a gradual thing that we, you know, got to come to terms with. And, you know, no one's, you know, no one out there is going to feel sorry for us. Teams aren't going to lay down just because we're down a couple guys or I'm going through some adversity. So we got to be able to play, continue to, you know, show up, continue to try to get wins. And that's what we're trying to do right now. It is, you know, it's adversity, though. That's what it is. And it's not the norm for us. But at the same time, like I said, teams aren't going to lay down for us. So guys got to step up. We got to continue to stay together and continue to scratch and claw and figure out ways to get wins. Ty, do you think Jaron is realizing how dominant he can be yet? Yeah, I think he is. I think he's, I mean, he always shows flashes. And that's been the thing with him is just consistency. Consistency, being on the court, staying out of foul trouble, dominating on both ends of the floor. Because he's very capable of doing that. And yeah, he's continuing to figure it out. He's continuing to get better. He's continuing to learn and grow. And we need that from him. We need that from him. And he wants it. That's the most important thing is he wants to get better. He wants to continue to improve. He wants to dominate. He wants to be great. So that's all you can ask for him. He's going to continue to put in the work. And yeah, he's just leading us. Tys, two games there. Y'all lost one fairly close at the end. What was the difference tonight? Is it playing at home? Or was there a different feel in this game versus on the road against them? A little bit, yeah. Playing at home, obviously, I mean, our record is way better at home than it is on the road. And that's something that we have to figure out. And we're trying to do that as we speak. But at the same time, in the fourth tonight, we stayed disciplined on both ends of the court. Stayed locked into the game plan. And then more specifically, offensively, we continue to trust in one another. Not let the defense kind of dictate what we do. We wanted to be the dictators and just be more physical and assertive on the offensive end. So we did a good job of that tonight. We'll continue to watch the film and continue to see how we can continue to get better in the fourth quarter. Tys, so in that first quarter, another high-scoring quarter, 48 points. You had six assists alone in that quarter. Just how did you see that quarter kind of set the tone for y'all's game plan execution for the rest of the three quarters? Just being aggressive. Being aggressive. We know they got a lot of firepower over there. But we wanted to come out and swing first and just come out being aggressive. Shoot our shots with confidence, like Coach talks about all the time. And just playing with confidence. Just wanted to get back on the right track. We knew we needed a win coming off the last couple games. So just figure, go out there. Just shoot our shots with confidence. Just play together. Play hard and live with the results. Tys, you've been in the league, I think, longer than anyone on the team other than Stephen Adams. So you've been in a lot of different locker rooms. Some people have kind of said lately that the Grizzlies need a couple more veterans in that locker room as someone who had good vets and things like that. What do you think? Do you think what this locker room has right now, do you need vets? I mean, you're a vet. But do you think those things could help certain maturity aspects and things like that? Or just how do you feel about the overall locker room camaraderie that you have right now? I think our camaraderie is great. I think we got a great mix of guys. I think, like you said, myself and Steve-O, as the older guys on the team, I think we're doing the best that we can as far as being vets and being the older guys. We got a lot of young guys as well. But our camaraderie is great. Everyone just goes through learning experiences. Everyone has to continue to grow. That's a part of life. I'm going to continue to grow. You ask me, three, four years from now, I'm going to be a totally different person than I am today. I think our camaraderie is great. I think we got everything we need in that locker room. We're going to continue to stay together. And that's all I got to say about that. All right. Thanks, guys. Thank you, guys. Y'all have a good one. Hey, Dre. First of all, how's the hand? Second of all, how would you assess the way you guys finished this game? I thought we fought back a couple times. When you fight back, you got to keep it going. You can't allow a team to make another run. It's like every time we get back, we allow them to make a run. You can't do that. We've talked about road defense a lot this season. And I know you can't really pinpoint what is kind of the cause for the drop-off when you guys hit the road. Just what did you see tonight on the end? Well, we started the game off soft defensively. And you let a team get a rhythm. It's tough to break it, especially at home. Dre, I mean, obviously, this, I guess, called a rivalry now has obviously been heated. It's not called a rivalry. What's that now? This a rivalry? You want to call it that or not? You want to call it that, but I would disagree. All right. Well, whatever you want to call it, I guess like... It's a basketball game. No worries. Obviously, Dylan, you have some things to say on your podcast. Dylan has some things to say to you guys on the court tonight. Just, I guess, when two teams get that competitive like that, how much for you guys is that still, does that still fire you guys up a little bit? Or is it just kind of, you're used to it at this point? No, it's expected. Team's been getting up for us for years. It's what happens when you win a lot. So they'll keep getting up in a major way for us. Did that Dylan response in any game, do you think that had anything to do with what you said earlier this week? What response? Dylan's play tonight, yelling, obviously withdrawing. He always yells. I don't know. You have to ask him. I'm not sure what motivates him. I know playing against us motivates him. So I'm not sure he was extra motivated, but he's kind of played the way he plays, I think. Unless you saw something special that I didn't. Yeah, me either. Back to Dylan again, at least briefly. You and him had that moment in the second quarter, nose to nose. He's passed the technical foul line. You're sort of up against it. Referees let it go. No whistles there. Your reaction to sort of that moment in the game? He thought he would bait me like he gets baited. I get technical fouls when I want to get a technical foul. I don't get baited into technical fouls. So I think that's probably the difference in between me and him. If I do that to him, it'd be a double-tech because he'd respond. But it's not a double-tech because I didn't respond. One of us are baitable. One of us aren't. That's just kind of how it goes. Why don't you consider this a rivalry? One team has to win, and then another team has to win. That's what creates a rivalry. Not because one team gets up for you and talk like they can beat you and then not. That doesn't create a rivalry. Rivalries are created by you win, I win. Clearly, we won four times, and I think their organization has zero championships. So I can't consider that a rivalry. So when you say win, you ain't talking about in March. You're talking about... Oh, I mean, anybody can win in March. Anybody can win in March. What that mean? I have a hard time getting out of my bed in March. That was the game in March, man. All right. Come on, we beat everybody in here. I'm not waiting. All right. Jaren, obviously, you guys benefited from being at home, first of all. One, how good was it to be at home? And two, did that kind of feed the energy going up against the Warriors a bit? Yeah, been a minute since we've been here. Always good to come back home. Always our sixth man in terms of bringing energy. So definitely led to a lot of runs, a lot of good runs for us. Great work by our fans. And then obviously, the energy was high enough. Obviously, Dylan had that moment with Draymond. Obviously, Dylan was a bit fired up going into this, going up on the court. It seemed like when he's going like that and you can see that energy kind of like show in those kind of ways. What does that do for you guys as a team? Love it. Love to see it. It's perfect. I mean, it just shows how bad we want it. You know how bad he wants it and it just radiates through everybody. Yeah, it's passion, man. Gotta love it. And obviously, he has been struggling this year, but in a game like this, the shots are falling a little bit more. He's fired up like that when both of those things are working together. Does that kind of just fire you guys up for him? Because obviously, you know how hard he's trying to work through this. Yeah, he's a big responsibility. He has a big job every night. He's got to shut down the best player and he's got to hoop offensively. So it fires me up just to see when he gets going because it just goes through everybody. And obviously, Draymond had little things to say post-game. Main thing he said was he doesn't think this is a rivalry yet because obviously, it's more of one team has kind of dominated the other. When you guys face this team, do you feel a little bit more going up against them a little bit? Every time we touch the floor, it's a rivalry. We saw this team many times. We feel like every single time we're out there with them, it's a rivalry for sure. Do you feel like even though it's only been since 21, but do you feel like these two years have just kind of brought something extra out of you when you faced them? Maybe a little bit. We kind of do this with a bunch of teams. So there's a bunch of dates on our calendar we're going to look at a little bit harder because there's 80 games and a couple games might get you a little bit more up. But it really shouldn't be like that. It should be every game. It don't matter who's out there for real. But this team obviously brings a little bit more out of you, a little bit. Yeah, of course. I mean, they won last year and they beat us. Thank you.