Tuomas Iisal doesn’t need ‘magic tricks’ to overcome Ja Morant’s new injury

For most teams, the sight of a superstar like I Morant limping off the floor in the fourth quarter would cause a crisis. For Jaren Jackson Jr.’s new-look Memphis Grizzliesit was just the latest chapter in the season’s playbook on adaptation Tuomas Iisalo was forced to write from scratch. Morant left in the fourth quarter of the win over the LA Clippers with an apparent ankle injury, a potential setback that could disrupt the continuity of a weaker team.

Fortunately for Iisal, the Grizzlies responded with grit, not panic. The identity of this group was forged in the fire of eternal absences after all.

“We had a very, I don’t know how to say it, but like Jaren and I basically didn’t have a preseason with us,” Iisalo began. “I got injured before the first game; Jaren was out for the whole championship, he played two training games with us.”

It was the opening act of an injury saga that forced a roster overhaul before the season even began. Absences stretched beyond the stars, forcing a major adjustment from the start. The linebacker depth has evaporated and the frontcourt scheme has been scrapped.

“That Jerome is out. We started the season essentially without a point guard,” added the Finnish tactician. “(Jock Landale) was supposed to be our third center, but we started without Brandon Clark and Zach Eddy. That just put us in a very, very difficult place early on where we had to not only find a groove in different lineups and different types of systems from before, but they were in different roles that those players had been in before and in bigger roles.”

Instead of succumbing to the chaos, the Grizzlies embraced it.

I Morant’s Grizzlies move on

The coaching staff and players have committed to daily adjustments, treating each obstacle as a problem to be solved rather than an excuse for failure.

“Back then, there were a lot of things that held us back,” Iisalo explained. “What we did was we just kept working. All the credit goes to the guys who worked day after day, week after week. We tried to turn it into a positive and a strength. Instead of feeling sorry for ourselves and figuring out why this wasn’t going to work, we just put our work hats on to try to make it work. We can make it better by understanding how it plays, how it works.”

This approach has created a team that is unconventional by necessity, its system tailor-made for its available parts. So when Morant went down, the adjustment wasn’t a struggle for a new miracle, but an application of painful, hard-earned muscle memory. The Grizzlies have been playing the “next man up” symphony for weeks now.

“It looks very different to how most teams are playing right now,” admitted Iisalo. “It’s because of the skill sets of the guys and the way they interact with each other is very different. So there’s no real magic tricks, just a lot of work and analysis and then synthesizing it into the game.”

That last sentence underscored why Memphis isn’t panicking over another Ja Morant injury scare. Iisalo will not improvise or just hope for the best. These Grizzlies rely on forged habits through a season spent recalibrating roles, redefining lineups and learning how to overcome adversity.