MEMPHIS — Three thoughts on the Utah Jazz's 95-78 win over the Memphis Grizzlies from KSL.com's Utah Jazz beat writer, Andy Larsen.

1. Jazz win yet another slog against the Grizzlies

Every Jazz/Grizzlies matchup is a slow-paced, defensive, physical battle that isn't exactly pleasing to the eye. Don't believe me? Here's every single Jazz/Grizzlies matchup since the 2010-11 season:

Coming into Friday night's game, it was fair to wonder if the trend would continue. The Grizzlies are at their lowest state in years, having lost 15 games in a row. They recently played a game in which they didn't play a single player drafted in the first round:

The last team to do that? The Jazz, on Feb 22, 2010.

But despite the lack of talent, the Grizzlies continued their brand of grit-and-grind basketball. They defend hard and well as a team, even though they're a group of young players who haven't played much together.

Look at this play from the first quarter, for example. Xavier Rathan-Mayes, a 23-year old who declared for the 2017 NBA draft but then went undrafted, was called up on a 10-day contract by the Grizzlies four days ago. But look at how much effort he's giving in navigating this screen, sliding his feet well to try to stay attached with Royce O'Neale.

That being said, I feel like the Grizzlies deserve credit for how they played. Xavier Rathan Mayes fights hard on this screen, for example. pic.twitter.com/uhkpLbzV1q — Andy Larsen (@andyblarsen) March 10, 2018

He's not 100 percent successful, but again, it was typical of the effort the Grizzlies gave throughout. The Grizzlies aren't sleepwalking through games, I don't think, they're just very limited in talent.

"Not every game is pretty," Jazz head coach Quin Snyder said. "I thought there was a stretch there where we didn't handle the pressure as well as we could have. Our defense held strong, and if we can do that, we can survive."

2. Jazz defense tough, Jae Crowder shoots well

So how did the Jazz win? Well, they continued to play defense well. Yes, the Grizzlies are the fourth-worst offense in the league, but the Jazz limited them to only 78 points and only 37 percent shooting.

Again, you can give Rudy Gobert a large part of the credit: the Jazz allowed the Grizzlies to shoot only 40 percent on shots within the restricted area, 10-for-25.

Overall, the Grizzlies only scored 24 points in the paint overall. That's the fifth time the Jazz have done that, more than any other NBA team. The Jazz also limited the Grizzlies in other easy ways to score: Memphis only shot 6-22 from the 3-point line (27 percent) and only got to the free throw line for 14 attempts.

Without those easy baskets inside, the "free" points at the line, and the more-valuable ones behind the arc, it's just really, really difficult to have a functional offense. The Grizzlies didn't Thursday.

The Jazz almost didn't either. They were a little bit more successful at the rim (shooting 17-28), and a little bit more successful from the line (16-22). But the biggest thing that made the Jazz's offense work was the 3-point shooting, where the Jazz went 13-32 from beyond the arc.

Leading the way there was Jae Crowder, who had his best shooting night in a Jazz uniform by shooting 6-11 from deep and scoring 22 points. Nearly all of them were from a simple formula. The Jazz ran pick and roll at the top of the key with Rudy Gobert, Crowder spaced from the corner, Crowder's defender went to go help prevent Gobert from rolling to the basket, and the Jazz made the right play and kicked it out to Crowder for the wide open three.

They also just helped a lot, repeatedly, off of Jae Crowder in the corner, and then he hit the open 3s. pic.twitter.com/6yj7incygi — Andy Larsen (@andyblarsen) March 10, 2018

So while Gobert had only four points tonight, there's a pretty simple explanation: he was getting double-teamed on his roll, leaving Crowder open to score his points.

3. Joe Ingles was on the receiving end of an alley-oop!

We know Joe Ingles as one of the best lob passers in the game, but in this game, he was actually on the receiving end of one.

The whole world thinks Joe Ingles is coming off this screen to catch the ball at the 3-point line, except then he defies expectation and catches an alley-oop for two: pic.twitter.com/NigO819zYy — Andy Larsen (@andyblarsen) March 10, 2018

This is a fun sideline out of bounds play. It begins by having Gobert set a rub screen for Favors, giving him the possibility of catching the ball by going to the hoop. But the Grizzlies handle it by switching the big men guarding Favors and Gobert.

So Gobert goes and sets another screen, this one for Ingles. Now, everyone watching this game and their dog thinks that Ingles is going to come off this screen and go catch the inbounds pass outside of the 3-point arc, and then Ingles will either just shoot it or go into a quick screen and roll play. That's just what the Jazz always do. Even the man guarding Neto and the inbounds is looking in that direction.

But this time, Ingles takes one big step towards the outside to fake doing that, and jolts quickly towards the basket. With both big men out on the perimeter, the paint is wide open, and Raul Neto sees it. He delivers a perfect overhead inbounds pass to Ingles, delivered with pace from about 30 feet away. Ingles just lays it in in a short shot clock situation.

This kind of play takes advantage of scouting. Because teams think they know what the Jazz are going to run, they take steps to prevent it. The Grizzlies were playing good, physical, denial defense, and the Jazz turned it on its head to get two points and in an unlikely way to boot.

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