"Every time the season has threatened to slip away, Rudy Gay has been there, knocking down shots in the face of LeBron James, beating buzzers in Phoenix and generally living up to an $84million contract that just a few months ago made him seem like the poster child for NBA excess.

But when the fourth quarter began Monday, with the Grizzlies trailing by three in a big-now-but-could-be-bigger-in-April moment against another Western Conference playoff contender, Gay was not there, and it surprised him - so much so that he actually got up off the bench to check in, unaware that coach Lionel Hollins had already sent out five other players.

Dragging his teammates into the postseason, however, should not always be a 40-minute-per-night job. And as the fourth quarter wound down in Monday's 86-73 victory over the Trail Blazers, with the Grizzlies not just surviving but burying Portland without him, it was perhaps the first sign that this three-game winning streak might not go the way of the last one.

"I'd love to be on the court," Gay said. "But to be honest, we need those kinds of nights."

At 11-14, the Grizzlies are still not all they should be, and they're about to play 14 of their next 22 on the road. Getting to .500 by Feb. 1 is doable, but it will require nothing less than Gay continuing the trajectory of his career season all the way to the finish line.

Is that too much to ask?

For the money Michael Heisley laid out to make Gay his franchise player, it can't be. But after all the 30-point nights and all the mentally taxing game-winners, nights like Monday might leave him a little more in the tank.

After the Grizzlies foundered through the second half, leaving them down 64-61 to a Portland team fighting foul trouble and fatigue, it seemed the heavy lifting would again fall to Gay, who had 12 points in the first and four more in the team's clunky, 12-point third quarter."