Coach Lionel Hollins picked up a lot of things when he was a Memphis assistant earlier this decade under Hubie Brown. Brown liked to divide the season into segments. He figured that stringing all those segments together, looking at each of them as an individual goal, would keep his team from looking too far ahead. He divided the 2003-04 season, when the Grizzlies won a franchise-record 50 games, into five-game segments, with the goal of winning three games. For Hollins this year, the goal is two of five games. That would give the Grizzlies a losing record but would be a 10-game improvement over last year. With a revamped roster, that is a reasonable and obtainable goal.
"It just depends on what the realistic expectations are for your team," Hollins said. "We should start focusing on getting a certain amount of wins every five games. You've got to stay in the moment."
The players are buying in.
"Sometimes you look so far ahead that it hurts you," second-year guard O.J. Mayo said. "Last year, we looked at months. You'd think about how many times you didn't win that month. With this method, you give a hard push every five games to try to get to the goals you've set."
SUNS 126, GRIZZLIES 111: The Grizzlies stuck with their game plan of going inside and controlling pace for a quarter on Wednesday in Phoenix. But once the Suns were able to speed up the pace, the Grizzlies reverted to one-on-one basketball, something that has been their downfall in almost every loss this season. Memphis had held opponents to an average of 96.6 points in its previous five games, but the Suns had 98 points in the first three quarters on 68 percent shooting. Memphis had no answer for Phoenix's pick-and-rolls with Amare Stoudemire (28 points) and Steve Nash (16 assists).
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