The Grizzlies fell to 1-6 in their last seven games after losing to the Boston Celtics on March 31st to finish March. They finished March with their first losing month of the season, with a 6-10 record in their 16 games played in the month.
Before the game was played the NBA released their weekly power rankings that saw the Grizzlies remain behind their Western Conference counterparts they are battling for playoff seeding with. A 1-2 record last week added to their slide of losers in five of their previous six games before last night added to their skid.
Two of those five losses came to the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers, effectively giving those teams the tiebreaker over the Grizzlies if they finish the season with the same record. With that reality, the new NBA Power Rankings reflected just that as those teams have been more consistent than Memphis since their return from the All-Star break.
Grizzlies remain 13th in Week 24 NBA Power Rankings
The Grizzlies retained their lowest NBA Power Ranking since before the season began, with the 13th ranking for the second consecutive week. They were surpassed by the Detroit Pistons who jumped from 14th to 12th ahead of their matchup later this week on April 5th.
The firing of head coach Taylor Jenkins took control of the headlines last week as a shock due to the timing, with nine games remaining at the time. In the Grizzlies' only win last week against the lowly Utah Jazz, a clip went viral of a sideline altercation between Desmond Bane and Santi Aldama, summarising their skid despite the come-from-behind win.
However, the team showed a good fight in the second half of their first game without Taylor Jenkins in the head seat against the Los Angeles Lakers on March 29th. Their effort wasn't enough to overcome the combined 85 points scored by LeBron James, Luka Doncic, and Austin Reaves.
Heading into their matchup with the Golden State Warriors on April 1st, the Grizzlies are only 0.5 games ahead of them for the fifth seed and one game ahead of the Clippers and Minnesota Timberwolves for the seventh and eighth seeds.
Beginning tonight, the Grizzlies have three games remaining against the top eight teams in the Western Conference and could fall to the eighth seed if they don't figure out their struggles against them quickly. They only own a tiebreaker with the Minnesota Timberwolves and have a chance to win the tiebreaker over the Warriors with a win tonight and the Denver Nuggets when they face off on April 11th.
Seven games remain for the Memphis Grizzlies to regain control of their season. They have their full roster intact, except for Brandon Clarke, to help interim head coach Tuomas Iisalo's case to keep the job going forward.