Pick-and-Pop: Griz-Spurs Game 5 preview, where Game 4 ranks, more
Game 4 of Grizzlies-Spurs on Saturday night was an instant playoff classic, and one that probably changes our conception of the nature of the series. Today, we look at where the series stands and where it could be headed, listen in to San Antonio, pay respect to Game 4 moments that could be forgotten, and look at where the game and its big shots might rank in Grizzlies playoff history.
What We Thought We Knew Then and What We (Think We) Know Now
When this fifth playoff meeting between the Grizzlies and Spurs began more than a week ago, we suspected the Spurs were more vulnerable than their 61-win regular-season record indicated, but ultimately doubted the 43-win Grizzlies, without the top two players on its preferred wing depth chart, had the juice to threaten them.
We thought it would take a perfect storm for the Grizzlies to win games. On offense, that would mean Mike Conley and Marc Gasol performing at an All-Star level in unison, a too-rare occurrence this season, and it would mean flanking them with at least meaningful three-point shooting from the team’s shaky supporting cast. On the defensive end, it would not mean harnessing Kawhi Leonard. With Tony Allen out, there was no hope of that. But it would mean corralling the team’s up-and-down point guard tandem of Tony Parker and Patty Mills and mucking up the Spurs’ ball movement, forcing them into more turnovers and one-on-one play than they’d prefer.
But what we’ve found since the Grizzlies settled down and adjusted their rotation midway through Game 2 is that this doesn’t appear to be the case. The perfect storm doesn’t allow a win, it allows a big Grizzlies win. The Grizzlies need a lot to beat these Spurs, but they don’t need perfection.
On Thursday, in Game 3, the Grizzlies got the storm and won going away. In Saturday’s Game 4, they got a bravura Conley and, until the very end, a mostly middling Gasol, got good three-point shooting (12-27) but let Tony Parker (22 points, five assists) have something of a throwback game, and they had a terrible time with their own turnovers (22). Kawhi Leonard morphed into a Wilt Chamberlain on the wing (24 points in the game’s final nine-and-a-half minutes). And still they went toe to toe.
Since the conclusion of Game 1, through three playoff games with an overtime cherry on top, the series is 298-297 Spurs. The regular season series was similarly tight. Can we now call the Grizzlies’ Game 1 blowout loss an anomaly?
What to expect in San Antonio on Tuesday night?
The Grizzlies need Conley to keep up his showoff series (28 points and 8 assists on 52/48 shooting over the past three games), but have to confront potential defensive adjustments when Conley’s on the floor and figure out how to survive when he’s on the bench.
For the series, the Grizzlies are +20 in the 143 minutes Conley has played, -50 in the 54 minutes he’s sat. Backup Andrew Harrison has proven to be a gutty player, but the team still stalls out when he’s alone on the ball. The lead collapsed in the fourth quarter when Conley sat, and while most thought David Fizdale held him out too long (a whole 1:45 of game time), Conley does need to rest. How Fizdale manages Conley’s minutes will be key.
Conley has been magnificent since the Spurs defensive adjustment threw him off in Game 1. Both Conley and the team have responded to the Spurs deploying 6’6” wing Danny Green on him. But what about Kawhi Leonard? Spurs coach Gregg Popovich had only reached for that nuclear option on Conley in spots before the fourth quarter of Game 4, then switched to it as a primary look late. The Grizzlies survived, but with a rash of turnovers.
If Leonard guards Conley more regularly on Tuesday, the Grizzlies need a more effective Gasol, who’s due for another big game in the series. Double teams are coming at him quicker and more frequently now, and it caused some turnover problems in Game 4, but he was at his best when he looked to score quickly. A more decisive Gasol would go a long way to pulling off an upset in San Antonio.
The other question is on the wing. Vince Carter, despite shooting 3-5 from three in Game 4, has struggled. But the Grizzlies need him to soak up minutes, and he came up limp after knocking knees late on Saturday. What if he’s limited? The Grizzlies already tipped their (perhaps obvious) play: the return of sharpshooter Troy Daniels, whom Fizdale was able to match up with a fading-fast Manu Ginobili (0-15 shooting on the series). You could also see more wing minutes from Harrison, who has been much better paired with Conley than replacing him. And remember that the Grizzlies went big, with JaMychal Green at small forward and guarding Leonard, on a late possession in Game 4. We might see that again.
For the Spurs, we’ve probably also seen a hint of where they may be headed, with longer, younger Jonathan Simmons and three-point threat Davis Bertans perhaps nudging Ginobili and David Lee, respectively, from the rotation.
The biggest questions, though, are probably the play of secondary players sure to be on the floor.
Going into the series, everyone expected Leonard to be the best player on the floor, and for Conley and Gasol to follow him. That’s been the case. But no one expected the Grizzlies supporting cast to match their Spurs counterparts.
Will success in Memphis allow Grizzlies playoff newbies and relative novices such as Green, Harrison, Wayne Selden, and a crucially important James Ennis to return to San Antonio with renewed confidence?
Or will home cooking awaken Spurs underperformers, such Danny Green, 4-17 from three, or Lamarcus Aldridge, whose 15 points and 6 rebounds a game doesn’t profile like the #2 guy on a title team?
Excluding 2016, when Mike Conley and Marc Gasol were both unavailable due to injury, every Grizzlies post-season of the grit-and-grind era has included at least three wins and at least one road win. They have a chance to check both boxes in San Antonio on Tuesday night.
View from San Antonio
This column on Game 4 from the Spurs blog Pounding the Rock is a nice read. A little bit on your hometown team, from the other side:
There’s a reason no one wanted to play Memphis. They’re like Arnold’s T-1000 in Terminator 2: they never stop coming, even when they’re severely overmatched against a superior force. They have pesky young guys, like James Ennis and Andrew Harrison, whose heroics will go overlooked in light of Marc Gasol’s and Mike Conley’s big shots. They have even peskier veterans like Zach Randolph and Vince Carter, who is embarrassing his fellow NBA oldster Manu Ginobili in this series (I withheld from my kid that Manu is shooting 0-15 in the first four games because I don’t want her to start having nightmares.) And in Gasol and Conley, Memphis has a pair of stars who are easy to overlook until they’re sending you home with your tail between your legs.
We’ve Got Plays to Remember
The Game 4 finish was so bonkers it’s easy to forget what happened prior to the closing stretch, before the lead dwindled with Conley on the bench, before Kawhi’s historic close, and before the plays the Grizzlies scrapped together -- Conley’s size-him-up-and-take-him three over Aldridge, Harrison’s block leading into Gasol’s hoop and harm, Conley’s overtime-forcing floater, and Gasol’s final, rumbling game-winner -- to hold off his charge.
But earlier play provides the texture that makes for an epic game and not just a fantastic finish. A basketball lifetime was lived before the mid-fourth quarter. Here are five plays or sequences that should not be lost to posterity:
9-2 in 95 Seconds: The Grizzlies were already down double-digits (24-14) late in the first quarter and seemed to be teetering a little bit. But coming out of a timeout at the 1:47 mark, Mike Conley took over: Pulling Pau Gasol on a switch and dancing past him for a floater in the lane (1:35). Pushing in transition and finding JaMychal Green for a lob dunk (1:12). Getting Gasol again on a switch and guiding in a three (:48). Crossing over Patty Mills to set up a roadrunner rim run (:12). With a Pau Gasol dunk breaking it up, it was a 9-2 Mike Conley run to get the Grizzlies firmly back in the game.
Three Stops: Over a two-and-a-half minute stretch in the early second quarter, the Grizzlies had three emphatic defensive stops that not only bogged down the Spurs but fired up themselves and the home crowd: Andrew Harrison cuts off a Manu Ginobili drive on one side of the floor, and Conley does the same to Kyle Anderson on the other. Shot-clock violation (11:08). Mike Conley digs down on Lamarcus Aldridge to poke the ball away and Andrew Harrison darts along the baseline to meet him, ripping the ball free (9:42), and taking it the full 94 for a hoop-and-harm. JaMychal Green guards Tony Parker along the sideline in front of the Grizzlies bench, drawing an offensive foul and causing Vince Carter to levitate from his seat (8:33).
Capping Off a Run in Style: Midway through the second, Mike Conley takes a bump from Danny Green and lofts a three-pointer off his right foot that arcs high and plops through the net, punctuating a 23-4 Grizzlies run. (He can’t complete the four-point play. You can’t have it all.)
Marc’s Final Minute: After a mostly quiet performance so far, Marc Gasol finishes the first-half strong, with the assist of the game on a nifty little shovel pass for a Zach Randolph layup and a one-legged Dirk-style fadeaway over brother Pau to beat the halftime buzzer.
Daniels’ Big Bomb: Troy Daniels made a surprise appearance late in the third quarter, and it was even more surprising when he stayed on the floor to start fourth. But he honored his coach’s faith by drilling a 26-footer right in front of Fizdale, giving the Grizzlies a 79-71 cushion and, um, spurring a Spurs timeout.
Where Does It Rank?
I did not intend to do this with Saturday’s game, not wanting to “well, actually” a hoops masterpiece. But I’ve been asked at least a half a dozen times since late Saturday night, in person and on social media, to place the game in the history of Grizzlies playoff games. As someone who has attended every playoff game ever held in Memphis, I feel qualified to pontificate on this subject, so I’ll accept the requests.
The Grizzlies have had some great road playoff wins over the years: Game 1, 2011, over the Spurs, with Shane Battier’s three helping clinch a first-ever franchise playoff win. Game 5, 2013, in Oklahoma City, securing a first trip to the conference finals. Game 2, 2015, at Golden State, the Mike Conley Mask Game. But road wins aren’t the same kind of civic experience as home games, obviously, so I’ll set those aside.
Until the Grizzlies reach another conference finals and win a game, it’s going to be hard for anything to top the playoff runs in 2011 and 2013. The former was the story of a franchise that had never even won a playoff game launching itself from a #8 seed to Game 7 in the semifinals, going 5-1 on the home court, the only loss a gargantuan triple-overtime classic. As I described it at the time:
Before last month, Memphis had hosted six home NBA playoff games. It got six more this season. And those two six-packs of games couldn't be more different. The first set? The home team was 0-6, with only two games competitive late and a couple more glum affairs played out in front of plenty of empty seats. These six? 5-1. Each a sellout. Thrillers all.
Every home playoff game in this surprising run was memorable, each distinguishable by one word or phrase: The First Home Win, The Blowout, The Series Clincher, The Comeback, Triple Overtime, Avoiding Elimination.
2013 was a march to the conference finals that feature two four-game runs after initially falling behind and a revenge tour against a Clippers team that had tormented the Grizzlies the spring before.
While neither was a nailbiter in the fashion of Saturday night’s instant classic, the two signature games in those runs stand as the most intensely memorable nights in Grizzlies hoops history: Game 6 against the Spurs in 2011, the first series clincher, Z-Bo’s fourth quarter supernova and “blue collar player, blue collar town” post-game testimony. Game 6 against the Clippers in 2013, an exorcism that descended into utter bedlam in the fourth quarter, with probably the hottest crowd FedExForum has ever hosted.
But outside of that context, setting historical trappings aside, Game 4 on Saturday was probably the best pure playoff basketball game ever played in Memphis, the closest to the platonic ideal of what a great playoff basketball game should be. The Grizzlies have played plenty of thrillers, including 11 previous overtime playoff games. But most of those either petered out (the Grizzlies ran out of gas in that triple-overtime game against OKC) or featured the Grizzlies holding on while the other team made the more memorable plays (see the four straight Grizzlies-Thunder OT games in 2014).
Game 4, 2017, against the Spurs, percolated with tight play and subplots for three quarters (see above) and then hit a crescendo: Never before has an opposing superstar thrown so many haymakers and never before have the Grizzlies taken those punches and responded so fully. The back-and-forth dual climax, with first Mike Conley and then Marc Gasol answering Kawhi Leonard to first secure overtime and finally win the game was the greatest ending playoff basketball in Memphis has ever witnessed.
All things considered, one man’s Top Five Memphis Playoff Games:
- Clippers Game 6 - 2013
- Spurs Game 6 - 2011
- Spurs Game 4 - 2017
- Thunder Game 3 - 2011 (16-point second-half comeback for OT win, including the spontaneous hold-em-up "Norma Rae" growl towel moment)
- Spurs Game 3 - 2011
Honorable Mentions: 2011 Spurs Game 4, 2011 Thunder Game 4, 2011 Thunder Game 6, 2014 Thunder Game 3, 2015 Warriors Game 3, 2015 Trail Blazers Game 5, 2017 Spurs Game 3.
If the game can’t quite claim the top spot, what about Conley’s overtime-forcing floater and Gasol’s game-clinching runner in the annals of post-season Grizzlies shots?
We remember Shane Battier’s go-ahead three in Spurs Game 1 in 2011, but the Spurs had a good chance to respond. And we remember Zach Randolph’s late three in Game 3 of the same series, but that was to extend a lead, not take one. The biggest buzzer-beater-style shots in Grizzlies playoff history before this past weekend were probably Mike Conley’s three-pointer, with three seconds left in regulation, to force overtime in 2011’s Game 4 against the Thunder and Greivis Vasquez’s three-pointer with nine seconds left to force a second OT in the same game. We don’t remember these quite as well because the Grizzlies sputtered in the third overtime. Rank ‘em?
Biggest Grizzlies Playoff Shots
- Marc Gasol overtime game-winner, Game 4 Spurs 2017
- Shane Battier go-ahead three, Game 1 Spurs 2011
- Mike Conley overtime-forcing floater, Game 4 Spurs 2017
- Zach Randolph game-sealing three, Game 3 Spurs 2011
- Greivis Vasquez second-overtime-forcing three, Game 4, Thunder, 2011
Reach Chris Herrington at chris.herrington@commercialappeal.com or on Twitter at @chrisherrington and @herringtonNBA.