Ty Jerome after his 45-point opener: ‘The game kind of tells you what to do,’ and the logo 3 was ‘a little far’

Ty Jerome scored a career-high 45 points on Wednesday night, the most by any Memphis Grizzlies player in a season opener, and then explained it as simply as he could. “I’m going to say this all the time, man: the game kind of tells you what to do,” Jerome said after the 123-103 win over the Utah Jazz.

“They were playing most of my ball screens, like, in a drop and weren’t really sending extra help, and those are shots that I shoot every day, besides maybe the very last one, that was a little far,” he said. “I shoot those shots every day, so if teams are going to play us like that, I’m confident in those shots. You know, basketball kind of tells you what to do: shoot, pass, dribble. It’s a simple game.”

Jerome made 17 of his 25 shots, went 5-of-10 from three and 6-of-7 at the line, and added 7 rebounds and 6 assists in 32 minutes. The 45 points topped the franchise’s opening-night mark of 44, set by Ja Morant in 2020.

The video above was posted by Grind City Media, the Grizzlies’ team media outlet.

‘A little far’

The “very last one” was the shot of the night. With about seven and a half minutes left and Memphis comfortably ahead, Jerome brought the ball up, waved his teammates away and pulled up from the Grizzlies’ midcourt logo. It went in, made it 112-90 and finished a run of 12 points in the first five minutes of the fourth quarter. The home crowd answered with “MVP” chants.

“Shout out to the crowd. They were packed house tonight. They were in the whole game, so they made the game real fun,” Jerome said.

Memphis coach Tuomas Iisalo said the logo three was nothing new. “Not the first time I’ve seen it this year. He does that also in practices, and he’s never afraid of the moment,” Iisalo said. “He’s one of those players that is somehow able to build momentum also. It becomes very, very difficult to stop if he gets going.”

A new role

Iisalo also pointed to the size of the sample. Jerome played only 15 games in his first season in Memphis, all of them starts, and averaged 19.7 points in 22.6 minutes on 47.4 percent shooting and 42.0 percent from three. A year earlier in Cleveland, he averaged 12.5 points, almost entirely off the bench.

“He is an extremely high-level shooter,” Iisalo said. Comparing Jerome’s numbers with those of the league’s top guards, he added: “The numbers are essentially the same. They are just a lot smaller. The game sample and the minutes are a lot smaller.” The next step, he said, is “to sustain it and to do it night after night, and in a role that he really hasn’t been in before in the NBA as a starting point guard.”

Jerome, a 29-year-old in his eighth NBA season, made the night about the group. “That’s who we are as a group, right? Like, we’re going to play, what, 10 tonight? We’ll play 10, sometimes 11,” he said. “We got a deep team, and we’re going to play fast, play in waves, and everyone’s going to contribute every night. And that’s who we are. I know today was a real good example of our identity and who we want to be, and we got to continue to build on that.”

Boozer’s other kind of night

That fit the night of Cameron Boozer. The No. 3 pick shot 2-of-15 and missed all six of his threes in his debut, but he had 11 rebounds and 5 assists and was plus-32. Opposite him, Utah’s No. 2 pick, Darryn Peterson, scored 9.

Boozer said it was one of those nights when his shots were not going in, so he looked for other ways to help: “rebounding, getting stops, finding other guys, whatever it is.” He credited the building, too: “A lot of energy in the crowd. It was a lot of fun out there.”

He also pointed to the crowd during the 18-4 run that opened the second half, when Jaylen Wells dove into the stands to save a loose ball and the possession ended in a dunk. “When the arena erupts like that, it brings even more energy, so that run was a lot of fun out there,” Boozer said. “That’s what really opened up the game for us.”

The night also marked Jaren Jackson Jr.‘s first game back in Memphis since the February trade to Utah. He scored 15 and fouled out in the fourth quarter. The Grizzlies visit the Golden State Warriors on Friday at 10 p.m. ET, which is 5 a.m. Saturday in Cairo.