Bewildering Grizzlies Face Off With Magic in Berlin.

Colin Rafferty –

Your Memphis Grizzlies will take on the 22-18 Orlando Magic today as part of the NBA’s new European initiative, where they send teams across the pond to showcase the leagues talent and “grow the game.”

This will be without the biggest star on either team, Ja Morant, as trade rumors swirl around the 26-year-old.

This marks the first of two games that the Grizzlies are set to play against the Magic overseas, one in Berlin the other in London.

I don’t like this, just like in the NFL, it steals home games away from fans and people that ordinarily wouldn’t have the opportunity to see their team play. Especially when the other team has a player the Grizzlies traded away last year, in part to have a better season, and they haven’t.

Memphis fans will have to wait another season to give Desmond Bane a welcome back to FedEx Forum.

Onto the game, the Magic come into this affair after losing to the Pelicans on Jan. 11th 128-116. Where Bane led the way in scoring, posting 27 pts and Mortiz Wagner returned from a knee injury just in time to play in front of his home people of Germany.

The NBA will be glad they have him out there.

Orlando averages around 116.2 points per game, which is right outside the top 15 in team total offense. They are top 15 in team defense and 15th in point differential.

These numbers, while they are close to the Grizzlies averages, they indicate that the Grizzlies could be in for a tough two-game stretch.

They will need to rely on their defense and rebounding to keep them in the games and have an opportunity to win. When they have the rebounding and assist battle in their favor, they have chances to win, along with not throwing the ball away 15+ times.

The Grizzlies come into this game after taking care of the Brooklyn Nets on Sunday, 103-98.

That game looked like a lot of the games the Grizzlies had lost this year, had a lead, let it slip, and walk away with a demoralizing loss. They did not falter that time; Cedric Coward came up big in the last few minutes and sealed the victory.

They will need him to be on top of it this afternoon.

Franz Wagner is set to play against the Grizzlies today, as he is coming off an ankle injury that sidelined him for more than a month. This is not good news if you are a Grizzlies fan.

He is one of the guys on Orlando they had decided to build around, him and Banchero. He still leads the team in scoring average and is one of their better rebounders.

The Grizz will need to limit him as much as they limit his number of minutes played.

Writing and covering this team has been an arduous task this year; from injuries, to losing to bad teams, to now possibly trading away our star player.

It just has never gotten off the ground. It is unfortunate and disheartening, but these are the cards we have been dealt.

A reset would undoubtably set the Grizzlies back even further in trying to vie for a playoff spot, but this year had promise going into it.

Yes, it was cut out from underneath us when the Big Zamboni went down, but it seemed if they could get it together, they would have a strong and decent squad.

We are now 39 games into the season and things don’t look like they are turning around anytime soon. It sucks.

Focus on stopping Banchero and Bane, hope that Wagner isn’t played a lot of time, and keep possession of the ball. Those are the keys to the game, can they execute, that is the biggest question.

It will be interesting to see how the European people react to these games, especially what type of response Iisalo gets being back in his native continent. He is Finnish so it is not like his people will be all over the place, but I expect to see and hear about his players and coaches.

Finnish, and maybe he should be FINISHED as a coach for the Grizzlies. I’m still not sure why or what convinced Klieman to hire this guy, but he did and now we are seeing the results of him as the coach.

Below .500 and losing games they have all the opportunity in the world to win.

Sure, they have had an injury laden season, one that I cannot remember a team with this many good players out, and while all of this is going on, the idea was that he would bring a European style of play.

Well buddy, there is a reason the Euro-style doesn’t work in the NBA. You have to have good players, and when you don’t this is the result.

Wemby, Jokic, Giannis, those guys are really good, but that is one player, you surround them with good to great NBA talent, boom championship, but if you are rolling out 10-day contract guys, you are going to fall short.

Maybe the Grizzlies needed this trip, I don’t expect that is the case, but maybe they did. Go win a couple of games over the Atlantic and see what they can do when they get back.

It’s not getting any easier as they announced yesterday Edey, Clarke, and Pippen would be out another 4-6 weeks.

Be ready early to cheer on the Grizzlies, tip-off today is at 1:00 PM CST. You can watch live from your computer or devices, if you are at work, on Amazon Prime Video.