The competitive dynamic of Tuesday night’s Grizzlies–Warriors play-in was brutally simple: The Warriors were more skilled and generally better, but the Grizzlies were bigger, more athletic, and nastier. The winner would be the team that could enforce its style of play, and while Golden State eventually did so, there was a solid 24 or so minutes spanning the back half of the second quarter through most of the fourth when they couldn’t do a thing against Memphis’s physicality. I was particularly enamored of—and the Warriors were particularly plagued by—Zach Edey.
Edey is a curious player. His considerable strengths (vertical) and weaknesses (horizontal) are evident to anyone who watches him move around the court for one single play, and the Warriors made hay early by repeatedly isolating him and having Jimmy Butler and Steph Curry attack him in space. That was often the right play, though Edey is so huge and rugged that he warps the space on the court in a way no other player in the league does. Butler would feint and flex his way into the paint, beating Edey to the spot, or Curry would drive past an overplaying defender and into the paint, and neither superstar would convert on the sort of easy opportunity they have for a collective 30 seasons, due to Edey forcing a miss. Curry destroyed the Kings for 50 points in 2023 with these sorts of drives, but Edey, slow as he is, is just too big.
The Rileyian maxim is true: No rebounds, no rings. The single most striking change from the regular season on display on Tuesday night was the ferocity with which both teams fought for boards. The intensity on the glass is one of my favorite things about postseason basketball. Every possession is so precious, which leads to hyper-optimized halfcourt offense and, for those into hand-to-hand combat, a battle under the hoop after every shot. Butler and Brandin Podziemski were poking away half-secured boards, Santi Aldama was crashing late, and Jaren Jackson Jr. was mostly getting bullied and boxed out into hell.
The Grizzlies have propped up a shaky half-court offense all year with a ton of offensive rebounds, snagging 28.7 percent of their own misses. That’s third in the league, and not very surprising given that Memphis has started huge front lines all year. But Jackson Jr. is a nauseatingly bad rebounder for someone of his height and skill level, and he recorded a mere six rebounds in 39 minutes Tuesday night. The Grizzlies’ advantage, all season and against Golden State, is thanks to Edey. He snagged seven offensive rebounds, and 17 total; the Grizz went plus-11 on the boards, and Edey’s plus-minus on the night, plus-6, led all Memphis players. At least three of his rebounds were functionally blocks, simple Sabonis-style cleanups after great contests.
What makes Edey a fun rebounder to watch is his immovability. His height is the operative factor in his excellent rebounding, but he loves to beat the crud out of smaller guys on the block, and he has great technique too, high-pointing the ball and clearing acres of space. Somehow, 17 seems like an undercount; a ton of the boards Edey’s teammates harvested Tuesday night seemed to result from Edey’s box-outs. As the Grizzlies fought back from a 20-point deficit, the Warriors were not playing poorly—they were simply overpowered.
The Grizzlies lost, and will have to host the winner of Wednesday night’s Dallas–Sacramento Cancun Bowl for the right to get destroyed by the Thunder in the first round. Which is to say: The way Edey played on Tuesday night, rather than the outcome of the game, had the bigger effect on how I think about him. That was his first taste of postseason basketball, and despite shooting 4-for-11, despite having to deal with two hardened killers and also Draymond Green, despite his team’s starting backcourt either missing the game or hobbling off with an ankle injury, Edey stood tall, both literally and figuratively. I hope he and the Grizzlies eliminate whichever fake team limps out of the 9–10 game, because I want to see him fight against the Thunder’s double-big lineup.
Tuesday night’s box score does not credit Edey with a single block. That’s fine; I know what I saw.
