<font size="2">Opening night</font> for the Grizzlies tonight. It's for real now. This one game will pretty much show us the progress that the Grizzlies have made over the offseason. They take on the Boston Celtics. Here are the projected starting lineups - <font size="3"><u>Grizzlies:</u></font> C - Lorenzen Wright - F - Pau Gasol - F - Mike Miller - G - James Posey - G - Jason Williams - X Factor - Shane Battier - Injuries - Dahntay Jones (Left Ankle, out for game) - <font size="3"><u>Celtics:</u></font> C - Raef LaFrentz - F - Vin Baker - F - Eric Williams - G - Paul Pierce - G - Marcus Banks - X Factor - Tony Battie - Injuries - Mike Jones (Left Ankle, probable for tonight) - When: Tonight @ 7:30 Where: Memphis (The Pyramid) Promotion: If you come in a costume you get two free tickets to an upcoming Grizzlies game.
Right now the Grizzlies are up by nine. It's the second quarter and the Celtics haven't seen the light of day. So far, so good.
What a comeback Vin Baker has made. Man, I am watching the Celtics game(live in Boston) and I am so proud of what Baker has done. he battled back against alcochol(sp) and he has been playing great. Yes, he is not a star but he once was untill he hit that stage, know he is slowly returning to his vintage form. I know I should have posted this on the C's forum but I just wanted to hear some opinions on it here.
"Skinny Vinny" looks to be a great story this year. I loved him as a Buck because the man was a great basketball player. I am very happy for Vin Baker. I love having this guys on my fantasy team too.
Final Score: Celtics - 93 (2-0) Grizzlies - 91 (0-1) This was a very dramatic game. In the beginning the Grizzlies were murdering the Celtics, but thanks to a comeback headed by Vin Baker the Celtics gained the lead. In the final moments of the game it was tied at ninety-one all when Mike Jones (previously reported to be injured) hit a spectacular shot to put the Celtics up by two. The Grizzlies had 1.8 seconds left and it seemed they could pull off a win, but Jason Williams inbounded the ball to Gasol who stood outside of the three pointling doing nothing like a deer in headlights untill the clock ran down. This is a hard loss to deal with mainly because I honestly felt like the Grizzlies had the game locked up. Lead by Jason Williams, they were dominating the Celtics on both ends of the floor, but then the Celtic defense turned it up a notch and their offense made it harder for the Grizzlies' to make anymore defensive stops. I am holding two people responsible for this loss, Pau Gasol and Hubbie Brown. For the most part Hubbie Brown coached an excellent game, but his minute distribution was awful. When the Celtics started to make a comeback in the third quarter, Coach Brown kept Watson, Outlaw, and the other backups in the game while leaving Williams, Posey, and the starters on the bench begging to come in. Once the starters came in the game was almost out of reach. If it weren't for the magnificant defense of Jame Posey and Jason Williams' world class shooting, the Grizzlies would have been pumbled by an extremely larger sum. I hold Pau Gasol partly responsible for the loss because he confirmed my biggest fears about him. In the final minutes of the game, Gasol can not come through for his team. I was a sucker and believed all of the media reports that I was recieving which said that Gasol was getting bigger and becoming more agressive. The truth is that Gasol looked skinnier and softer than ever before. Any time a team loses their first game it is hard, but hopefully the Grizzlies and their fans can move past this loss and come back strong to beat the Rockets tomorrow night.
