Fatigue wearing down injury-bitten Grizzlies

The Grizzlies, 12-13 after Monday's 89-94 home loss to the Spurs in FedExForum, have played a little more of a third of the games in the strike-shortened 66-game season.

And one game below .500 isn't bad for a team missing 30.1 points and 16.5 rebounds from last year's squad. All-star forward Zach Randolph tore a MCL on Jan. 1 and is out until early March, while sixth-man Darrell Arthur tore an Achilles on Dec. 18 to end his season before it started.

But with the brutal schedule, trying to incorporate new faces and Grizzlies Coach Lionel Hollins admittedly leaning heavily on his four returning starters, fatigue is taking its toll.

"This season is more about being mentally tough than physically tough," Griz F Rudy Gay said. "We know we're playing a lot of minutes. We know the makeup of our team has changed. It's something you have to fight through."

But when you average 37.6 minutes like Gay, or 38 minutes like C Marc Gasol, or 35.3 minutes like G Mike Conley, you have nights like Monday when you can't conjure the mental toughness and sustain energy.

Gay was 9-for-26 and had no pop in his legs at critical stages late in the game. Gasol battled to exhaustion, but didn't get a shot to drop late. Conley wasn't much better, and sixth man O.J. Mayo looked gassed and shot 3-for-15.

Since the Griz bench has five of eight new faces from a year ago, Hollins admitted it has been hard to tap into his reserves that were outscored 35-21 by the Spurs, including 24-2 at halftime.

"I have to do a better job of managing the minutes," said Hollins, whose team continues a five-game homestand Wednesday night against Minnesota. "I have to have more confidence in some of perimeter people that they can do the job so we can cut down the minutes on our guys a little bit."

It hasn't happened so far. In fact, it's gotten worse.

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