Through the first week of the season, the Memphis Grizzlies have posted a 2-1 record. They begin their West Coast road trip against the Golden State Warriors on October 27th, who also sit at 2-1. With only a day for travel and rest, Memphis will complete its first “three games in four nights” stretch of the season. It will be their first big test against a Western Conference rival in this early season. Even though the season is still young, Memphis has left some prominent first impressions through the first three games.
1. Cedric Coward is as good as advertised.
Throughout the summer and training camp, Grizzlies fans heard players, coaches, and media raving over the talent and potential of 2025 11th overall draft pick Cedric Coward. Throughout the preseason, Coward showed flashes of his highly touted defensive versatility and shot-making ability. However, most of his preseason was filled with slow shooting nights and looking like a player who hadn’t played an organized basketball game in 11 months. Fortunately, Coward has knocked off his rust in a big way for the Grizzlies.
Through three games, Coward is averaging 19.0 points, 3.7 rebounds, 2.3 assists, and 1.7 steals on an astonishing 70.4% from the field and 72.7% from three. He’s coming off a game where he scored a game-high 27 points and shot 6/6 from three in the Grizzlies’ win against the Indiana Pacers. He’s shown he can impact the game in a big way on both ends of the floor. He also has the in-game feel and basketball IQ of a veteran. You can see that through his league-leading plus-minus rating of +51.
No one is expecting Coward to keep this nuclear level of shooting up. But if he can consistently be a difference maker on both ends of the floor, the Grizzlies may have finally found their franchise cornerstone wing.
2. Iisalo’s new offense is moving fast and will stay fast.
One of the biggest storylines going into this season was how the team would look under the tenure of new head coach Tuomas Iisalo. After being hired shortly after the Grizzlies were eliminated from the playoffs, Iisalo hit the ground running, implementing his philosophies. He coached Memphis’ summer league team to build some familiarity within the franchise and has taken that momentum into the regular season.
During training camp, the new mentality of this season under Iisalo was coined “speed kills”. Iisalo’s offensive staple is wanting this team to play fast in the open floor and have a pick-and-roll-heavy half-court offense.
Those two implementations have been felt immediately. Currently, Memphis ranks fourth in the NBA in pace with a rating of 107.67. Also, starting center Jock Landale is tied for second in the NBA in screen assists with nine on the season.
Iisalo's style of play magnifies the skills of playmakers such as Ja Morant and Javon Small, who have both looked comfortable in the offense early. It’ll be interesting to see how this offense looks when playmakers Ty Jerome and Scotty Pippen Jr. return from injury.
3. Three-point shooting will be essential.
The three-point shooting is another aspect of Iisalo’s offense that hasn’t looked good so far. In his new offense, he has promoted a large volume of three-pointers to be attempted. Memphis is ranked 10th in three-point attempts at 40 per game. That’s already a jump from last year, when Memphis ranked 13th in the league in three-pointers attempted at 37.9 per game. Unfortunately, the Grizzlies haven’t shot the three-ball well. Only managing to hit 32.2% of threes so far, which ranks 27th in the NBA.
Granted, floor spacers Jerome and Pippen Jr. haven’t played this year yet. However, if a large portion of the offense will be three-point attempts, the Grizzlies need to knock them down at a higher clip. The greater the floor spacing, the more room Morant and Jaren Jackson Jr. will have to dominate the paint.
There’s still time for this team to gel and improve on the shortcomings of the first week of the NBA season.