Marc Gasol sounds off on ‘embarrassing and sad’ Grizzlies

Grizzlies center Marc Gasol’s expectations are low right now.

Everything in his basketball universe seems bad.

Gasol even received a technical foul after he kicked an opponent’s shoe off the court during live action. The incident happened Saturday night during the Grizzlies’ loss to the Houston Rockets when Clint Capela lost a sneaker while the Rockets were on offense.

No whistle was blown until Gasol received the technical foul.

Gasol believed he was trying to prevent an injury by removing a floating object from the court. The explanation given by referees was that Gasol’s action was unsportsmanlike because they believed Capela tried to retrieve his shoe. The video replay doesn’t show Capela reaching for his shoe.  

Yet Gasol doesn’t expect that odd ‘T’ and the fine that goes with it to be rescinded by the NBA.

Color Gasol pessimistic these days.

The Grizzlies are mired in a four-game losing streak, and their record (7-8) is below .500 after starting the season 5-1 last month. When the 7-footer finally emerged from the shower to speak in a postgame media scrum, Gasol paused for several moments before answering the first question.

His words were measured as Gasol had plenty to say about what ails the Grizzlies.  

Q: What are the problems with the team?

A: “There’s a few of them, obviously. I think selfishness, but I don’t want to think it’s in a bad way. I don’t think guys are being selfish intentionally. But they’re thinking too much, or they’re allowed to think too much on themselves than on the team. We’ve got to get stops as a team. We’ve got to get good shots as a team. If we don’t do that, it’s a ripple effect that’s just hard to stop. You allow some things to happen, and it’s just hard. Defense doesn’t work if it’s four out of five guys, or three, or most of the time it’s two, but sometimes it’s three, sometimes it’s four. Sometimes it’s five guys and we get stops for maybe 10-12 minutes. But it’s not enough. There’s no consistency. It’s going to be really hard to win consistently. You might win games every now and then. You might even stay at .500. But that’s not what we’ve built here for 10 years. That’s not what we’ve stood for. To me, it’s embarrassing and sad."

Q: How difficult is it to remain positive?

A: “I went to the back and I stood there for 20 minutes trying to think of what to say to you guys. The only thing I can say is I apologize because that’s not what our fans are used to seeing and we’ve got to figure it out. The only way I know how to do that is working, getting back to work, helping the players. There’s a lot of new guys that haven’t been a part of this, but it’s the mindset that we’ve always had, the accountability that we’ve always had, the mindset of one-on-one challenge and trusting the guy behind you. That right now is not there and that’s the hardest part for me to swallow, the trust. You can deal with guys not knowing yet, but you want to see moving ahead, which I don’t do often, and you’ve got to at least have the mindset of trying to learn and being team first and executing single plays. We have three plays, maybe four. So there’s not that many to remember.”

Q: Is this a test of culture?

A: “I don’t recognize what we’ve built for so long. Obviously, you always have to evolve. You cannot play like you played in 2013. You’ve got to adapt to the game. But there are some things that have to stay and are necessary to win. Right now, those are there. Right now, we don’t have those things.”

Q: What is the biggest obstacle to building the chemistry?

A: “I can’t put my finger on one thing. It’s not one thing. It’s multiple things that are all tied to each other. What I’ll tell you is that everybody has to look in the mirror. That’s how things get solved. If you don’t do your part, I don’t care how many fingers we point at each other, that doesn’t help. You’ve got to do your part first. Be honest with yourself.”

Q: How much of this disconnect is related to new lineup rotations?

A: “That sounds like an excuse to me. I never accept that. It doesn’t matter. It’s really hard to play small minutes. Jarell (Martin) went from starting to playing in the G League. A lot of guys are being shuffled in different positions. It’s hard. I understand that. Not all of the guys are going to play 35 minutes. But if you’re thrown in the mix, you’re expected to do something and that’s play defense. That’s the only thing you can always account for – having your guy one-on-one, communicating whatever action is happening and that you can do. We cannot ask everybody to make five threes a game. We cannot ask everybody to have zero turnovers, 10 assists because those things are not going to happen. But to have the responsibility defensively… that’s just your job, man.”

Q: Is all of this exacerbated by Mike Conley being out with a sore left Achilles?

A: “When Mike was playing, too, we had some of the same issues. We have more consistency with Mike because we’ve been playing together longer. He understands more about what we do and probably takes it more serious. But you could see the last few games we lost with Mike on the floor (bad) things happened. We’ve got to nip it in the bud and don’t allow it.”