With the Memphis Grizzlies pushing Taylor Jenkins out, Tuomas Iisalo has been named as the team’s interim head coach, per ESPN senior insider Shams Charania. Due to his lack of coaching experience at the NBA level, he’s an unknown commodity to the average fan. However, he has an impressive body of work and sounds like is clearly respected by his peers.
Tuomas Iisalo The Grizzlies Next Head Coach
A few months before the Grizzlies hired Iisalo as an assistant coach, he joined a group of Basketball Clinic Belgrade lecturers that included Charlotte Hornets front office advisor Steve Clifford (then the team’s head coach); London Lions head coach Petar Božić (former Austin Spurs head coach); and EuroLeague champion and Real Madrid head coach Chus Mateo.
There he discussed pick-and-roll and transition defense in detail.
Naming his three primary factors to a great pick-and-roll defense, Iisalo cites personnel decisions, base defense, and high-quality practices and training sessions.
Personnel: Athleticism, length, and processing ability Base defense: A go-to defense to "hang (their) hat on" and hold players accountable Practice and training: Pedagogy and progressively pruning away the team's weaknesses
He goes on to cite the importance of speed, effort, youth, organization, simplification, and optimization.
The Coach of the year, Tuomas Iisalo explains his philosophy 🧠 🏀
To go from a good team to a GREAT Team?
Defense 😤 🛑 #RoadToGreatness pic.twitter.com/pyLIAFnteI
— BKT EuroCup (@EuroCup) April 11, 2024
By the end, he had made it clear that how passionate he is about defense. Indeed, Iisalo believes “defense is the one thing that (he feels) separates really great teams from the good teams. He also revealed that he had learned from coaches like Clifford, Quin Snyder (Atlanta Hawks), and Ettore Messina (Olimpia Milano), directly or indirectly.
The Coach of the year, Tuomas Iisalo explains his philosophy 🧠 🏀
To go from a good team to a GREAT Team?
Defense 😤 🛑 #RoadToGreatness pic.twitter.com/pyLIAFnteI
— BKT EuroCup (@EuroCup) April 11, 2024
The week prior, Iisalo had won the 2024 EuroCup Coach of the Year award with Paris Basketball. This was in a season that he won 25 straight games. He had already won German League Coach of the Year (2022, 2023) and Basketball Champions League Coach of the Year (2023).
Two times German League Coach of the Year (2022, 2023), Basketball Champions League Coach of the Year in 2023 and EuroCup Coach of the Year in 2024.
Tuomas Iisalo is climbing the ladder step by step! pic.twitter.com/jFqyVfwwfo
— Vasiliki Karamouza (@karamouza_vas) April 6, 2024
Iisalo Style
All of that being said, Iisalo’s “essentially viewed as a pick-and-roll expert,” per Commercial Appeal reporter Damichael Cole.
Regarding Tuomas Iisalo, he was essentially viewed as a pick-and-roll expert when he joined the staff. The Grizzlies have notably trended away from a high pick-and-roll usage this season. Not a lot of time left, but expecting to see more of that.
— Damichael Cole (@DamichaelC) March 28, 2025
In a Frankfurter Allgemeine profile written by two-time Coach of the Year Stefan Koch, the “Iisalo style” is described as: “…ultra-modern, based on pace, speed, plenty of three-point shooting, and strong offensive rebounding.
Changing The Offense?
Given that Iisalo mentioned beating opponents with team reactions rather than individual talent at the 2024 Basketball Clinic Belgrade, Memphis’s current offense may not get flipped on its head.
The Grizzlies are multiple star-level or star-caliber pieces. Yet, their offense is a read-and-react system that emphasizes pace and space –their fastball and 3-ball. It isn’t really overly reliant on any particular player either.
The numbers back it up.
Memphis currently ranks first in pace (103.4), second in points per game (122.1) and sixth in offensive rating (118.0). They’re also in the top half of teams in terms of 3-point conversions (13.8 per game; 11th), 3-point attempts (37.6 per game; 14th) and 3-point percentage (36.8; 19th).
That sounds a lot like the “Iisalo style.”
However, if the Grizzlies do begin to improve their pick-and-roll play though, it could benefit them. They currently rank in pick-and-roll ball hander frequency (9.6 percent) and points per possession (0.80). Frankly, that’s strange for a team with Ja Morant and Scotty Pippen (Jr.). They also rank last in pick-and-roll roll man frequency (3.4 percent). This despite scoring 1.15 points per possession, tied for the seventh-highest mark in the NBA.
© Chris Nicoll-Imagn Images
