The Grizzlies know who they are, and they play to those strengths. They are epitomizing the “zig when everyone else zags” cliche right now. Everyone is trying to emulate the Warriors right now. Play faster, shoot more threes, switch across all five positions.

The Grizzlies see this movement in philosophy and think to themselves, “nah, we’re good.”

Memphis plays slow, and utilize conventional pick n’ roll defense with Gasol executing drop coverage. The Grizzlies have no interest in joining the firearms race between teams such as Golden State, Houston, Toronto, or Milwaukee. In a world where everyone is running faster and shooting more threes, the Grizzlies gave Kyle Anderson a four-year contract.

Memphis wants to grind their way to victories. They’re 3rd in defensive rating, and dead last in pace at a mark of 95.4. That deliberately slow pace is what we are going to examine today, and how it presents teams the best opportunity to knock Golden State off its throne.

The Larger Pace Argument

Right now, in the Twittersphere, there is a debate taking place surrounding pace. Basketball minds are re-evaluating how to calculate pace, what constitutes playing fast, how much pace correlates with offensive efficiency, and how much pace correlates with winning.

This isn’t that argument. The Grizzlies play slow and are smothering teams defensively on their way to a winning record. The idea here is that this very strategy might be the best approach when playing the Warriors.

The Fundamentals of Sample Size and Variance

If you’re reading this there is a good chance you’re not just a basketball fan, but a sports fan. Therefore, there’s a decent chance you’re a football fan. Odds are, you’ve at some point heard over the past 10 plus years that the best way to beat the Patriots is to run, run run, kill the clock, shorten the game, and keep Tom Brady on the sideline. The underlying principal here is there is more variance over the course of less instances.

It’s not mystery why the Patriots play at one of the fastest paces. If Tom Brady gets 10 drives, that’s 10 chances for him to score points against you. Odds are, he will score more than you in this scenario. If Brady gets only 6 or 7 drives, then there is a better chance something fluky could happen which will have a larger impact on your odds of beating him if he has less chances to overcome it.

If you ever end up playing prime Tiger Woods in golf (hey, anything’s possible) play him for a single hole. You’re not going to beat Tiger Woods over 18 holes, because you’re just not. However, on a single hole he may just shank his tee-shot, leaving you an opening.

Consider this simulation, courtesy of Jacob Goldstein, where player A is a 50 percent shooter and player B is a 35 percent shooter:

When player A and player B have a shooting competition that is a single shot, A wins 35.6 percent of the time, while B wins 18.6 percent of the time. Once the competition gets to 50 shots, A wins over 92 percent of the time. 100 shots and A wins 98 percent, and at 500 and 1,000 shots A wins 100 percent of the time.

Player B’s best chance at winning is for the competition to be a single shot. Low sample sizes increase variance massively.

Is it best to slow the game down so that both you and Golden State attempt as few field goals as possible over the course of the entire game?

Is There Any Precedent Here?

There is a rich irony in writing an article like this after Memphis lost to Golden State by 16 points in early November. But the 2014-15 Grizzlies don’t profile too differently from the 2018-19 Grizzlies. In 2014-15, Memphis was 2nd in defensive rating and 26th in pace. That same year, Golden State was 1st in both offensive and defensive rating, as well as pace.

The two teams met in the conference semi-finals that year, with the Warriors winning 4-2. Each team played at a pace of 91.5 for the series. Memphis outperformed Golden State in three of the four Four Factors categories. The two games that were kept within a single digit margin were won by Memphis. Golden State won their four games by double digits in each instance.

The Grizzlies had a 98.2 offensive rating for the series, so it makes sense they couldn’t win the games where the Warriors had too much fire power. Upon first reading, that may seem like it undermines the entire premise of this article. Remember, it’s not about the Grizzlies specifically, it’s about their approach to the game.

In a world where we assumed you have to have the fireworks capable of keeping up with Golden State, are you better off shortening the game and hoping for variance?

Don’t Fight Fire With Fire

Join me, if you will, on a trip back to June 2015. The second and third best players on the Cavaliers were injured, and LeBron James was facing the Warriors in the Finals with a supporting cast of J.R. Smith and Matthew Dellavedova.

Similar to two rounds earlier against Memphis, the Cavaliers bested Golden State in three of the four Four Factors. The same ones, actually – all but eFG%. Each team played at a 90.7 pace. Any game decided by more than double digits went to the Warriors.

LeBron James shot a miserable 39.8% from the floor, but took 32.7 shots per game. He was being lauded for slowing down and shortening the game. He was following the “Beat Brady” model, and many were pontificating if he should win Finals MVP as a result.

The three leading scorers on the Cavs (not counting Kyrie’s single game) after LeBron in those Finals? Timofey Mozgov, J.R. Smith, and Tristan Thompson. The three leading scorers on the Warriors after Steph Curry in those Finals? Andre Iguodala, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green.

The talent discrepancy is self evident.

But at one point in time the Cavs were winning the Finals, 2-1. They were just undermanned to an insurmountable degree. But there is something to this.

You Got An Example Where The Better Team Loses?

Yea, it’s called March Madness.

Do you think UMBC beats Virginia if they play a best of seven series? No, you don’t. The majority of the double digit seeded upsets don’t happen against the high single digit seeds if they play a series, rather than a single game. This is literally the entire excitement of the first two rounds.

There’s a reason the movie is called Any Given Sunday, and not Any Given Seven Game Series.

Travel with me again back to 2015, but this time specifically to April 4th. The Wisconsin Badgers have just beat the previously undefeated Kentucky Wildcats in the Final Four.

With 6:37 left in the game, Kentucky was up 4 points. They then went scoreless for more than five minutes from there. In that time Wisconsin scored 8 points, putting them up four.

Kentucky slowed down the game, considerably, and decided to wait until late in the shot clock to look for any kind of offense. This lead to both fewer possessions and inefficient offense from the Wildcats.

The big question after the game was “did coach Cal blow it?”

“So at a first glance, slowing the game down seems like a good idea for Kentucky — they were ahead, after all.

But there are reasons not to do it. Kentucky is the slightly better team — or at least that’s what Vegas and the FiveThirtyEight model thought before the game — and in the abstract the better team should want to play a longer game (a game with more possessions). Under our assumptions, if Kentucky and Wisconsin played an infinitely long game, Kentucky would always win.“

The strategy played into Wisconsin’s hands. If the two teams raced up and down the court for the final 6:37, it probably would have been Kentucky that faced Duke in the title game.

Does This Work In The NBA?

It can, and to bring this full circle back to the Grizzlies, let’s look at their three most impressive wins this season.

Updated 2018-19 NBA win projections after just over 4 weeks of the season, sorted by change from pre-season projection: pic.twitter.com/XhPbfiRiep

— Jacob Goldstein (@JacobEGoldstein) November 15, 2018

Entering the season the Jazz were a popular pick to finish 2nd in the West. Our projection model had them winning 55 games, just squeaking past Houston. They’re now projected for 49 wins, still a very good season.

The Nuggets forecast hasn’t moved much. Entering the year they were projected for 50.1 wins and as of November 15th they are projected for 50.5. For the sake of simplicity let’s just consider both the Jazz and the Nuggets 50 win teams.

Before the season the Grizzlies were projected for 33.7 wins, and they are now up to 38.6.

The Grizzlies are a combined 3-1 against the Jazz and Nuggets.

To quickly refresh everyone, the Grizzlies are last in the league in pace this year with a mark of 95.4 as of this writing.

In their first game played this season, a 92-84 victory by the Grizzlies, Memphis played at a 96.0 pace and held Utah to a 93.9 pace. In their second meeting, a 110-100 victory by the Grizzlies, Memphis played at a 90.2 pace and held Utah to a 90.0 pace. When the Grizzlies played the Nuggets, an 89-87 win by Memphis, the Grizzlies played at an 87.5 pace and held the Nuggets to an 88.6 pace.

Keying In On The Denver Game

The Nuggets are currently 2nd in the West, and sport the best point differential in the conference. Denver is also 8th in offensive rating, much better than the Grizzlies’ 21st ranking. The Nuggets rank 5th in defensive rating, only 0.5 behind Memphis’ 3rd place rating. Denver is 5th in net rating, nearly a full 4 points better than the Grizzlies’ 13th place rating.

The Nuggets are the better team, we all know this. If we go back to the nugget (pun intended) from fivethirtyeight, the superior team in their model will win in a game that is infinitely long. Well right now the Nuggets are 9th in the fivethirtyeight ELO ratings, while the Grizzlies are 22nd.

But Memphis won, and they did so by play the game at a pace 8% slower than their slowest-in-the-league average pace.

The Grizzlies don’t have the fire power to keep up with Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, or Gary Harris. So they shortened the game and let variance kick in. The Grizzlies only took 70 shots in the game, but the Nuggets bricked their way to a 25% shooting night from deep, and 39% from the floor overall.

Would This Work Against The Warriors?

In that 16 point loss to Golden State, both teams played at a pace of 95.0. So the Grizzlies did successfully slow the game down, and still lost by double digits. There are two factors to consider here.

First, the Grizzlies just don’t have the talent to beat the Warriors four times in seven tries. For this to work you have to have the talent to get quality shots in the half court. Memphis just isn’t good enough in that area. But the idea here is Memphis might be the blueprint for Toronto, Boston, Houston, etc.

Second, the Warriors are historically atypical. They’re the best team ever assembled in league history. At full strength they just feel absolutely unbeatable, because they are.

Golden State is the basketball revolution, and everyone wants in on the model. But you’re never going to beat them at their own game. You have to zig while the Warriors are zagging.

If you want to beat Steph Curry in a shooting contest, challenge him to one shot. You’ll never beat him over the course of 50 shots, because you just won’t. But on one shot he very well could miss, and you very well could make it.

Slow down the game, shortened it, keep Tom Brady on the sideline. Let variance be your friend when you are the underdog. You need it, because odds are you are going to lose. Randomness is your ally when you’re outmatched.