On Sunday, Rudy Gay might as well have played with that shoulder sling he consistently rocked last postseason draped over his Grizzles uniform. He couldn’t have played much worse.
In that 40-point loss to the Chicago Bulls, the Small Forward from Memphis shot 16% from the floor (2 of 12) to finish with 5 points, 2 turnovers, 3 rebounds, 1 assist, and 2 fouls. Not exactly the missing piece type game that Grizzlies fans had hoped for with Gay heading back into the line-up this season.
Following that Bulls game, Gay told Fox Sports Tennessee that he wasn’t happy with his play. Nor did anyone expect that he was.
This from Gay according to The Grizz Insider:
“I’m trying to find myself,” said Gay, who’s 6-for-23 n his last two games and 15-for-47 in his last three games. “It’s not my shoulder. I’ve put in enough work and spent enough time with my shoulder to know nothing is wrong with it. It’s just me. I’m the problem.”
A problem he maybe sorta completely corrected himself last night in Sacramento. For the first time all season Rudy busted through the 20-point plateau to finish with 23 points on 10 of 16 shooting to go along with 8 rebounds and 2 assists. Grizzlies Nation collectively offered a sigh of relief at the same time too in response, that even knocked the cowboy hat off Bryant “Big Country” Reeves himself late last night according to unconfirmed reportedly.
Memphis is now 2-3, which does look a lot better than losing by 40 to fall to 1-3, and maybe more importantly five other Grizzlies reached double figures on the same night Rudy did. I say maybe more importantly because Zach Randolph didn’t play, and the real question that needs to be answered is can Rudy, Z-Bo, and Marc Gasol all figure out how to go off aggressively together at the same time. Nothing Gay could do about that last night though, and I suppose it’s good he stepped up to pick up that scoring load.
The shot distribution on this team will undoubtedly be important to watch though as this season unfolds. Gasol only needed 10 shots to get to 14 points last night, but he probably does need to touch it at least a few more times than that. Tony Allen, as much as he’s my favorite NBA tweeter in the history of Twitter, can’t take 12 shots to get to 10 points either.
It’s certainly good that Rudy found himself at least for a night though, we’ll see what happens when Randolph finds himself back out there alongside him.
