Memphis head coach Tuomas Iisalo is not the loudest voice in the Western Conference, but after another win over Denver he sounded like a man who has solved a very specific problem.
Iisalo watched his team grind out a victory built on defence, pressure and effort — and he was happy to share exactly how it happened. Asked about the mood in the locker room after the final buzzer, the Finnish coach skipped past the usual platitudes.
"I mean, you could sense it in the locker room. Great energy after the game," Iisalo said. "Very happy about also the nature how it came through. Like it wasn't one of those games where we're shooting lights out and the opposition is somehow, or we are lucky and they're not. This was the best type of win, which is one where you win without necessarily needing the basketball to go in consistently."
The headline of the night was Nikola Jokic, who coughed up the ball far more often than usual. Iisalo explained the plan directly.
"All the credit goes to the guys," he said. "I thought we've had a couple of good game plans going into both of the games. That's why I think he's had those big turnover numbers in the games. We've been able to wear him down with full-court pressure with a little bit smaller units, but still really active."
Iisalo stopped short of declaring the Jokic code cracked. "He's an amazing offensive player. So, there's not one thing you can do. But the worst thing is if he knows exactly what's coming up."
The offensive story belonged to Ty Jerome, whose early shot-making set the tone before Denver started adjusting.
"Yeah, he was just clinical right from the get-go hitting those shots," Iisalo said. "After that they started playing him more aggressive off the ball screens and he did a great job manipulating their coverage and their protection and just finding open guys. We created tremendous shot quality also in the first half. We had a lot of open looks."
Jerome's ability to flip between scorer and decoy has become a quiet theme of Memphis's season. When defences commit to chasing him off the arc, he has learned to slip the extra pass into the lane.
Iisalo was equally direct about the defensive end, where Taylor Hendricks has been asked to play bigger than his listed height every night. The coach pointed to Hendricks' steal-and-block rates against opposing fives as a rotational answer when Memphis goes small.
"Both of those guys are game after game playing against opposition fives," Iisalo said. "Just their energy level — and we try to cycle through pretty fast so guys can come in and give their best effort and then the next guy can come in and step in. And Taylor's been really solid."
Memphis' coach would not be drawn on projections, but the pattern is hard to miss: pressure the ball-handler, rotate smaller units, trust the shot quality the system produces. It worked twice against the reigning MVP. If the Grizzlies draw Denver in April, Iisalo already has the tape — and, as he put it, the game plan.
