Garrett Temple scored 20 points, Marc Gasol and Mike Conley added 19 apiece and the Memphis Grizzlies sent the Washington Wizards to their fourth straight loss with a 107-95 victory on Tuesday night.

Five games into an 82-game schedule is too soon to draw firm conclusions. The Grizzlies’ most-used lineup so far has played only 22 minutes and features two players (JaMychal Green, Chandler Parsons) out and likely to be for a while longer. They’ve played three games against teams widely projected to be among the league’s half-dozen worst.

NBA practices are off-limits to non-team personnel, but listen closely and you can hear (some of) what goes on behind closed doors.

Marc Gasol heard a pop and then went numb.

This was one of those games, for the Grizzlies, where the outcome that mattered most was not the final score.

Welcome to the first Grizzlies Mailbag of this season. This one was a test-run, with no guarantee of a follow-up, but I got more good questions -- on short notice -- than I had time and space to use.

For the first time in nearly a year, the Grizzlies can look at the NBA standings and see themselves in the black. The last time the Grizzlies had a winning record was November 15, 2017, when they began their day 7-6. With an unexpected road win against the Utah Jazz on Monday night, the Grizzlies move to 2-1.

The Grizzlies are hitting the road for a two-game West Coast trip a man short, with forward JaMychal Green likely out more than a month with a broken jaw suffered in the second half of Friday’s home opener.

The 19-year-old rookie, the guy that was the fourth overall pick in the 2018 NBA Draft, showed out in his home debut as a Memphis Grizzly. He was fast and he was natural as he scored 24 points, grabbed seven rebounds, and blocked two shots.

For the second season in a row, Grizzlies forward JaMychal Green will miss significant time due to a random injury suffered in the team’s home opener.

It’s a first-quarter timeout at the Grizzlies home opener and Grizz, the mascot, comes through the tunnel with something in his hands. It’s an infant in costume, a bear-cub cutie. Grizz carries his cub to midcourt, “Circle of Life” from The Lion King playing. He raises the little one above his head, toward the rafters. The crowd -- appropriately -- roars.

Jaren Jackson Jr. began the night by dapping up Young Dolph during the introductions.

If Memphis head coach Penny Hardaway was offered a chance at $125,000 to skip a year of college and go to the G-League, he would decline. 

A home opener is supposed to be a day of celebration, whatever the future holds, not a time for the biting of fingernails.

The coach liked what he saw on opening night: “Defensively we were really good. … Every guy went out on the floor and played hard. … The intensity didn’t drop off. … I just really liked our effort and execution, playing the game together.”

In the first half, Marc Gasol looked a lot like his team: slow of foot and uncertain of mind. Gasol got (a little bit) better in the second half, which was more than you could say for the team as a whole.

It’s the start of another Memphis Grizzlies season. What exactly does that mean?

On the cusp of this Memphis Grizzlies season, the franchise’s 18th in Memphis, the prevailing questions have been been about the team: How good can they be? How concerning were their preseason struggles? But let’s take a moment to talk about you.

When former Grizzlies head coach Dave Joerger needed a bucket, he’d yell “Turn Four,” a call for Zach Randolph to get the ball. When we need to mull over the big questions at key moments in the Grizzlies season, we use it to call a Daily Memphian quorum.

The American Athletic Conference coaches predicted Monday that the Memphis Tigers will finish fourth this season.

Everyone’s happy the NBA preseason has shrunk. Not long ago, eight games was the norm. Now every team plays between four and six. The result is fewer games that don’t count, padded out by players who won’t be on regular season rosters; more air into an 82-game real season that needed extra rest time. Win-win, right?

There are different levels of NBA fandom. Some care about their team and some care about the entire league. There’s no right or wrong way to be a fan, but the following NBA-wide deep dive is for the latter kind.

Finishing up the final lap of the preseason, the Memphis Grizzlies showed more of a regular-season rotation early. The Houston Rockets showed midseason form on their 3-point shooting. The Rockets unloaded their 3-point arsenal, all the way down to a Chris Paul 30-footer in the first half, building a 27-point lead en route to a 121-103 victory over the Grizzlies on Friday night in the preseason finale for both teams.

Orlando Magic guard D.J. Augustin was cruising toward the basket for a right-handed layup. That’s when from the left corner 6-foot-11 Jaren Jackson Jr. flew to the other side of the rim and blocked Augustin’s shot.

When the Memphis Grizzlies open the regular season on Oct. 17 at Indiana, they will have played just five preseason games and the Pacers will have played only four.