The Grizzlies host the New York Knicks tonight at FedExForum in a game that will be nationally televised on TNT. Some notes on the state of the team and tonight’s game:

Rudy Redux: After writing in depth about the Rudy Gay “situation” after Tuesday night’s game, I don’t want to spend much time on it here. But I will clarify and underscore a couple of points. I wasn’t trying to “excuse” Gay’s poor play, but to try to understand and describe it, and “he just needs to play harder,” while probably true to some degree, seems too simple. It seems clear to me that Gay’s struggles — which are real regardless of how defensible you think they are — are coming from a confluence of physical and mental issues: Conditioning/rust issues from his injury and layoff plus increased pressure to immediately better his pre-injury production in the wake of Zach Randolph’s injury combining to exacerbate a pre-existing tendency for on-court adversity to disrupt his mental approach to the game. Gay’s current play is bringing back old doubts about his make-up that he was starting to get past.

Is this weakness? Well, it’s certainly a deficiency, and one that I think his current play suggests isn’t going to be totally correctable. If you want to characterize this problem in accusatory or moralistic terms, so be it. My larger point was that this problem — which has not and, I would suspect, will not prevent him from still being an all-star caliber contributor — comes from somewhere. And I think it’s what I called a relative lack of instinctiveness but which you could also call “feel for the game” or “court awareness” if you prefer. I think it’s clear to anyone who watches him a lot, fans and detractors alike, that Gay has a tendency to think rather than react on the floor, and this makes him more susceptible to letting poor play and resulting frustration affect his performance. And that’s happening right now perhaps more than ever. This is somewhat discouraging but, for me at least, doesn’t wipe away all of the positive qualities he has as a player.

At the same time, I think this issue has, for the moment at least, been made into too big of a thing (and maybe I’m not helping in that regard), because “well-paid player returning from injury needs to be The Man and isn’t doing it” is an easy peg for columns and radio shows and Twitter complaints. This is a team game and there’s more going on with this team than Gay’s disappointing recent play.

Other Rotation Issues: The consternation over Gay has obscured other developments with the team, so to move on to other areas, here are some bullet-point observations on five related pairs of Griz players:

* O.J. Mayo and Tony Allen: The other two main parts of what should be, at its best, a versatile, productive wing rotation are playing well. There were legitimate concerns about Allen entering the season — his breakout first campaign with the team had the look of a classic “fluke rule” season; would the success and attention go to his head and disrupt his game, a la James Posey before him? But, happily, Allen has looked like much the same player we saw a year ago. His steal rate (3.53 per 48 minutes, fourth best in the league among players notching at least 20 minutes a game) is again among the best in the NBA. His offensive is still a high-wire act, but at 48% shooting and with a turnover rate appreciably lower than his Boston years, he’s still contributing with reasonable efficiency. The wing is one area where the Grizzlies still have good depth, but even with that in mind, Allen’s 22.7 minutes per game seems a little low.