After losing both halves of a road back-to-back, what will home-cooking mean for the Grizzlies big two? I mean Shelvin Mack and Dillon Brooks, of course.

We’ll find out by Tuesday night whether there’s a “blue wave” in the midterm elections. But on Election Day eve, the Grizzlies ended their three-game West Coast road trip submerged by a familiar Golden wave.

For the first time this season, the Grizzlies found themselves in a single-possession game in the final five minutes.

Is it too early to think about playoff positioning? The Grizzlies secured at least a season-series tie with the Utah Jazz in Salt Lake City Friday night, beating the Jazz in their building for the second time in the season’s first seven games. The win moves the Grizzlies to 5-2 and tied with the San Antonio Spurs for fourth place in the Western Conference.

As the Grizzlies head out on a three-game Western Conference road trip, a quick look at a couple of the team issues of the moment and the matchups this weekend:

Andrew Harrison was waived by the Memphis Grizzlies, the team announced Thursday morning, a move apparently made to create roster flexibility for future needs.

Welcome to the second Grizzlies Mailbag of the 2018-2019 season, where the Grizzlies are piling up wins and we’re piling up questions. Let’s dig in.

As the Memphis Grizzlies tweaked their roster during the offseason, they weren’t necessarily looking for longshot gambles that might pay off big but also could go bust. They were looking for reliable players to fill roles that again would make the team’s sum much greater than its individual parts.

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.

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

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.

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.”

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. 

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?