Scout Says Grizzlies’ Ty Jerome Is ‘Really Good’ but Not a Playoff Team’s Top Scorer

Ty Jerome scored 23 points on 10-of-20 shooting Wednesday night in the Memphis Grizzlies’ 107-103 loss to the Indiana Pacers at FedExForum. Two days earlier, he scored 40 in a 135-134 overtime loss to New Orleans.

A scout and an NBA executive both brought up Jerome in Casino.org’s NBA notebook from Eric Pincus, which ran Thursday. The executive said Jerome “has been tremendous.”

Two weeks ago, the scout would not have had Memphis in the play-in.

“Jerome is good,” the scout said. “He’s really good, but I don’t think he’s the best scorer on a playoff team. From a talent perspective, the Grizzlies are middle-of-the-pack, but if you asked me that two weeks ago, I’d have said they’re not making the play-in.”

Jerome made 17 of his 25 shots against Utah on Oct. 21 and finished with 45 points, his career high. Ja Morant held the franchise record for an opener before that, at 44 in 2020.

Jerome scored at least 20 points in the second half of each of the first three games, the Grizzlies said. The team also said he became one of four players in NBA history to reach 100 points in under 100 minutes over his team’s first three games while going 3-0. He had 28 at Golden State on Oct. 23 and 31 at Sacramento two nights later. His first Player of the Week award was announced Oct. 26.

Jerome said the team’s 3-0 start is what earned it.

“It was cool,” Jerome said in a postgame interview with Grind City Media, the Grizzlies’ in-house outlet. “Honestly, I didn’t think too much of it. If the team don’t go 3-0, you don’t get that. So I’m just happy we started off 4-0, honestly, more than anything.”

Jerome missed his first three shots that night in Salt Lake City and was 1-of-10 when he drove for a layup with 5:16 left. Memphis won 110-105. He made 3 of 5 from there and both free throws with 11.6 seconds left, and afterward said he would keep taking the shots he works on.

“They were a little more aggressive in the coverages, a little more denying,” Jerome explained. “If I’m stepping [into] the shots that I work on and I know I can make, I’m going to keep stepping [into] those all night. And towards the end, finally drop. A few finally drop.”

Jerome, 29, played three seasons at Virginia and was part of its 2019 national championship team. Last season, he averaged 19.7 points and 5.7 assists in 22.6 minutes per game, but injuries limited him to 15 games with Memphis, according to The Associated Press. Memphis went 25-57.

Early in the third quarter Wednesday, Jerome scored 7 straight points on a pull-up 3, a floater, and a reverse layup. Memphis went up 66-58 and never led by more. He was 2-of-10 from 3-point range in 29 minutes, and the Grizzlies were plus-11 with him on the floor in a game they lost by four. With 28.2 seconds left, his floater made it 104-103. Aaron Nesmith’s corner 3 came on Indiana’s next trip.

Bleacher Report’s Grant Hughes ranked every NBA team’s top trade assets on Wednesday, and he put Jerome first for Memphis.

Tape study and the limited practice time Memphis gets are how Grizzlies coach Tuomas Iisalo plans to sort out who else brings the ball up alongside Jerome.

“You already mentioned a few of them there, so that’s a good start,” Iisalo said. “It’s the same question just asked, so it will take some time. It will take some time. We’re still figuring out what the guys can also do in this ecosystem and together. And there’s obviously, you can have others bring it up, [too]. You can have that. That can also slow down the game. You can speed it up or slow it down that way. We know that Ty is in there to generate those pick and rolls for us. He’s in some of the highest percentiles in the whole league when he gets those, and he’s very efficient with them.”

“We just got to figure that out and that’s why we watch the tape and then draw the conclusions and try, [in the] small amount of time that we have to practice, we try to work on those,” Iisalo continued. “[There are] a lot of them. You can break them down, the highest level, that’s the team tactics, what are some of those, but then there’s also the individual decision-making in those situations, whether the handler or the screener, or the three other players around it, or four other players around it. And then there’s their skill level, the tools that they have. The decisions are more about, let’s say, the tactics, what you make in that situation.”

Jerome took 20 shots against Indiana, and half of them were 3s. In the fourth quarter, he went 2-of-6 and missed all three of his 3-point attempts.

The best players in the world are extremely skilled, in Iisalo’s view.

“But if you don’t have the technical skills, for example, now you must work on it, and that can take a longer time,” Iisalo explained. “It can still be addressed, and then it’s more robust. That’s why you see the best players in the world. They’re extremely skilled and that opens up more tools for them. So we just got to find the right level to access, then work on that, get better. That’s a very straightforward and logical process.”

Memphis (6-2) hosts the Oklahoma City Thunder on Friday at 7 p.m. CT.