Memphis Grizzlies: Should Taylor Jenkins be on the hot seat?

Memphis Grizzlies HC Taylor Jenkins has not put the proper time into free-throw shooting

Even if he was getting to the line, nobody on this team has shown that they can hit late-game free throws, which leads me to my next point.

It’s one thing for a team to struggle with free throws at important times for a stretch in the year, but it is abundantly clear that Jenkins has not stressed free-throw shooting nearly as much as he should be stressing it.

After the Grizzlies took a loss to the Dallas Mavericks that saw Grayson Allen, a 90 percent free-throw shooter, miss two free throws with a two-point lead, leading to a Luka Doncic buzzer-beater, you would think free throws would be priority number one. This doesn’t look like it has been the case.

This wouldn’t be so bad if this was a one or two-time occurrence so far this season, but that isn’t what’s going on here. More often than not, when Memphis establishes a lead, they collapse offensively, including their free-throw shooting.

In fact, on a larger scale, the Grizzlies have become an objectively worse free-throw shooting team as the season has progressed, which is completely abnormal for an NBA team without any major mid-season injuries playing a factor, much less a team that has had specific instances that indicate necessary improvements from the line.

In the first two months of the season, the Grizzlies were a top ten free-throw shooting team in the league. Since then? 21st in the league.

It’s not the first time we’ve seen significant regression as a team at the end of the season, either.