Official San Antonio Spurs VS Memphis Grizzlies 1st Round Thread: MEM Win 4-2!

Z-Bo's the hero as Memphis stuns San Antonio for 2-1 series lead

The chant started in the rafters and quickly spread into the lower bowl.
Z-Bo, Z-Bo, Z-Bo.

Hundreds quickly became thousands -- 18,119 to be exact -- their voices becoming louder, stronger with each passing second.

Z-Bo, Z-Bo, Z-Bo.

Standing alone on the sideline the object of their adoration, Zach Randolph, couldn't help but let a smile slip. He has gone through so much to get here. Dismissed by Portland. A salary dump by New York. Shoved aside by the Clippers. Everywhere Randolph went, it seemed, his weaknesses overshadowed his strengths.

Not here. Not in Memphis. Here, he is beloved. His past is his past. They know it. They just choose to forget about it. "As far as I'm concerned," said Grizzlies owner Michael Heisley, "his career started here." That career began with an All-Star season in 2010 and, perhaps, reached a high water mark with a 25-point, five-rebound and three-assist effort in Saturday's 91-88 win over San Antonio. The final margin came courtesy of a Randolph 3-pointer over Tim Duncan that whipped the sellout crowd into a frenzy and gave eighth-seeded Memphis a surprising 2-1 lead in the series and its first home playoff win in history.

"That's the shot I work on and practice every day," Randolph said. "It felt good when it left my hands."

Said Duncan, "I didn't assume that was in his arsenal."

It is, and much more. Randolph has always been able to fill a stat sheet -- "you could pretty much chalk up a 20 (point) and 10 (rebound) night every time you played him," said Shane Battier -- but in Memphis, his game has diversified. Often accused of being a black hole in the post, Randolph is an improved passer. On the Grizzlies' first possession, Randolph found a cutting Mike Conley. Later, Randolph executed a perfect high-low pass to Marc Gasol who picked up the bucket and the foul. In the second quarter he skipped a behind the back pass to Tony Allen for a layup.

"Zach's the kind of guy who always wants to do the right thing," Battier said. "And he's a heck of a basketball player."
In Memphis, however, Randolph has become more than that. He is a one of the most oft requested players for community events and interacts with fans like he is one of them. A "Let's go to work Z-Bo" from a teenager in the fourth row? That gets a wave. A constructive criticism from a middle aged man on the baseline? A nod and a "you're right" look. When seven-year old Ellen Taylor shuffled off the floor after singing the national anthem, Randolph was the first one to give her a high-five. Indeed, the small town boy from Marion, Ind. has found a home in one of the NBA's smallest markets.
"This city has adopted me," Randolph said. "The people here work hard, they accept you for who you are. That feels good."

That acceptance has been well earned. Randolph and Gasol have been human wrecking balls in Memphis's two wins. On defense, they have clogged up the paint and have been there to meet every Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili drive. And against San Antonio's smallish front line, the Grizzlies' twin towers have exploited every mismatch. Gasol pumped in 17 points of his own on Saturday, with the duo accounting for the bulk of the team's 44 points in the paint. It was only when San Antonio started to take away some of their post-ups in the second half that the Spurs were able to claw their way back in it.

"They are big bodies and they are taking some stuff away from us," Duncan said. "We are just not reacting as well as we usually do to what is open and to what we have."

The Spurs have never won a series in the Duncan era where they had home court advantage and lost two of the first three. But the series is far from over. San Antonio outscored Memphis 46-39 in the second half and had a chance to tie it in the final seconds of regulation. This Spurs team won't be rattled by a 2-1 deficit or an energetic home crowd. Been there, done that.

"As I told the players, it's going to be a dogfight," Grizzlies coach Lionel Hollins said. "This was a battle. [The Spurs] are not going anywhere."

Neither, of course, is Randolph. The Grizzlies workhorse will be back at his familiar position in Game 4, banging his 6-foot-9, 253-pound frame on the blocks. The player ushered out of Portland, New York and Los Angeles has become Memphis's most indispensable man. The man so many coaches thought couldn't be counted on, trusted, now has a team and a city's unbending faith. Zach Randolph has always put up big numbers. Now, he is the biggest reason a playoff team is posting big wins.


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Happy to see the Grizz make some noise. This sure aint the same spurs as last decade thats for sure, but with that being said the Grizz better win game 4 as well if they want to win this series...
 
Happy to see the Grizz make some noise. This sure aint the same spurs as last decade thats for sure, but with that being said the Grizz better win game 4 as well if they want to win this series...
 
Having Z-BO on my fantasy team made me appreciate him more, but he seems to be one chill $@% dude 
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Having Z-BO on my fantasy team made me appreciate him more, but he seems to be one chill $@% dude 
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Mike Conley

On if this win makes the Grizzlies for real: “I hope so. If we’re not now then we will be. We’re not worried about what people think. We’re just going to keep grinding and playing our way until people give us respect and respect us. I know the Spurs respect us. I know our opponents respect us but until the outside world and everybody that doesn’t get to see the Grizzlies sees us play and sees us doing what we’re doing in these playoffs, they’ll eventually start to respect us and see what kind of team we are.
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Mike Conley

On if this win makes the Grizzlies for real: “I hope so. If we’re not now then we will be. We’re not worried about what people think. We’re just going to keep grinding and playing our way until people give us respect and respect us. I know the Spurs respect us. I know our opponents respect us but until the outside world and everybody that doesn’t get to see the Grizzlies sees us play and sees us doing what we’re doing in these playoffs, they’ll eventually start to respect us and see what kind of team we are.
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Weird stuff is going on.

The Spurs not making their 3s.(first in the NBA)
We are not getting turnovers.(we are getting some but not the usual 1st in the NBA)
The Spurs are out rebounding us.(Spurs are smaller)
We are defending the 3 point line(first time this year).

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Weird stuff is going on.

The Spurs not making their 3s.(first in the NBA)
We are not getting turnovers.(we are getting some but not the usual 1st in the NBA)
The Spurs are out rebounding us.(Spurs are smaller)
We are defending the 3 point line(first time this year).

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" What're we finding out in this series "

" Jon Barry: That the Grizzlies are a better team than the Spurs "

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" What're we finding out in this series "

" Jon Barry: That the Grizzlies are a better team than the Spurs "

bfe15f69a6b6fa20a2956815c5e1a03ffcddf92.gif
 
They developed into models of the modern NBA, the two best teams among a handful of similar clubs whose shared style seemed to point in the direction of the league’s general evolution.

The Spurs and the Magic aren’t identical, but over the last few seasons they (along with the LeBron James Cavaliers, coached by a Gregg Popovich disciple) embraced the same general principles on both ends: They built their offenses around pick-and-roll attacks and post games designed to generate three-point shots, burying the notion that long shots worth an extra point were somehow bad things or signs of weakness. They de-emphasized the offensive glass in favor of getting back on defense, a strategy that has become almost mainstream as offensive rebounding rates drop to record lows leaguewide every season. And on defense, they wanted, above all else, to force long two-point jump shots and rebound the plentiful misses those shots produce. That meant staying in front of your man, resisting the temptation to gamble for steals and rebounding record-high percentages of opponent misses.

It wasn’t the only way to win — not when the Lakers dominated with the triangle and Boston made two appearances in the Finals with a more aggressive defense — but it seemed like such a sound way to win, provided you had the right sort of talent to play this way. It seemed like the future.

And then the Grizzlies and Hawks happened, reminding us of three important truths:

1) There are still so many ways to win in the NBA.

2) Some of those methods might work better in the playoffs, where the game is still dramatically different no matter how much we want to believe in the trend-setting importance of the first 82.

3) Any system requires talent, and when that talent declines, as it clearly has in Orlando outside the center position, teams with fantastic regular-season scoring margins can become vulnerable. (And, yes, Jason Collins has had something to do with that.)

In Memphis, the Spurs have run into a team that is delightfully anti-modern. The Grizzlies — who lead the series 2-1 heading into Monday’s Game 4 in Memphis — have taken fewer three-pointers than any team over the last three seasons, choosing instead to pound the ball in the post and crash the offensive glass. Their defense is built around the notion that gambling is good; they force more turnovers than anyone, and they live with the consequences — a few open driving lanes and poor defensive rebounding numbers. Still, it seemed like a defensive system that might fail in the postseason — when teams take better care of the ball — and specifically against a motion-and-cutting machine like San Antonio that would punish the reckless.

And Atlanta? In the era of the quick point guard, the pick-and-roll and more complex movement, the Hawks are a boring isolation team at heart. First-year coach Larry Drew installed a motion offense this season, and the Hawks are still running a lot of those sets now against Orlando — at least for the first 10 seconds of the shot clock. The motion doesn’t really lead to a shot; it’s mostly just a lot of running and screening that ends with an isolation — Joe Johnson destroying the suddenly ancient Jason Richardson off the dribble or in the post, Al Horford backing down Brandon Bass, Josh Smith hitting a hook over Hedo Turkoglu. It looks so pedestrian.

But Memphis and Atlanta are winning (the latter leads its series 3-1), and they are doing so even as they have played as more exaggerated versions of themselves so far in the playoffs. For instance, about 15.6 percent of Memphis’ regular-season possessions ended with a post-up play; that number is up to 21.5 percent against San Antonio, according to the stat-tracking service Synergy Sports. The Hawks finished about 13.5 percent of their regular-season possessions with an isolation play — an average number. But in the playoffs, they are isolating on nearly 21 percent of their possessions, a giant increase.

Both teams are also running more pick-and-roll plays, a trend they share with nine of the other 14 playoff teams. The Spurs lead the way in this regard; a whopping 27.3 percent of their playoff possessions have ended with a shot from either the ball-handler or roll man on the pick-and-roll, compared to a rate of about 21 percent in the regular season.

Teams get more conservative in the postseason. As John Hollinger noted on Friday, teams are playing at a much slower pace in these playoffs and turning the ball over less. But the changes are deeper than that: Teams change their style of play to focus on what they find more comfortable and less risky, and once they find something that works, they stick with it. Only three teams — San Antonio, Chicago and Portland — are getting out in transition more in these playoffs than they did in the regular season, according to Synergy. Only five teams are getting fewer shots in the playoffs than they did in the regular season from either of the two participants in the pick-and-roll. That statistic may actually understate the degree to which the league falls back on its signature play in the spring, because a lot of shots Synergy logs as “spot-up
Click to expand...
 
They developed into models of the modern NBA, the two best teams among a handful of similar clubs whose shared style seemed to point in the direction of the league’s general evolution.

The Spurs and the Magic aren’t identical, but over the last few seasons they (along with the LeBron James Cavaliers, coached by a Gregg Popovich disciple) embraced the same general principles on both ends: They built their offenses around pick-and-roll attacks and post games designed to generate three-point shots, burying the notion that long shots worth an extra point were somehow bad things or signs of weakness. They de-emphasized the offensive glass in favor of getting back on defense, a strategy that has become almost mainstream as offensive rebounding rates drop to record lows leaguewide every season. And on defense, they wanted, above all else, to force long two-point jump shots and rebound the plentiful misses those shots produce. That meant staying in front of your man, resisting the temptation to gamble for steals and rebounding record-high percentages of opponent misses.

It wasn’t the only way to win — not when the Lakers dominated with the triangle and Boston made two appearances in the Finals with a more aggressive defense — but it seemed like such a sound way to win, provided you had the right sort of talent to play this way. It seemed like the future.

And then the Grizzlies and Hawks happened, reminding us of three important truths:

1) There are still so many ways to win in the NBA.

2) Some of those methods might work better in the playoffs, where the game is still dramatically different no matter how much we want to believe in the trend-setting importance of the first 82.

3) Any system requires talent, and when that talent declines, as it clearly has in Orlando outside the center position, teams with fantastic regular-season scoring margins can become vulnerable. (And, yes, Jason Collins has had something to do with that.)

In Memphis, the Spurs have run into a team that is delightfully anti-modern. The Grizzlies — who lead the series 2-1 heading into Monday’s Game 4 in Memphis — have taken fewer three-pointers than any team over the last three seasons, choosing instead to pound the ball in the post and crash the offensive glass. Their defense is built around the notion that gambling is good; they force more turnovers than anyone, and they live with the consequences — a few open driving lanes and poor defensive rebounding numbers. Still, it seemed like a defensive system that might fail in the postseason — when teams take better care of the ball — and specifically against a motion-and-cutting machine like San Antonio that would punish the reckless.

And Atlanta? In the era of the quick point guard, the pick-and-roll and more complex movement, the Hawks are a boring isolation team at heart. First-year coach Larry Drew installed a motion offense this season, and the Hawks are still running a lot of those sets now against Orlando — at least for the first 10 seconds of the shot clock. The motion doesn’t really lead to a shot; it’s mostly just a lot of running and screening that ends with an isolation — Joe Johnson destroying the suddenly ancient Jason Richardson off the dribble or in the post, Al Horford backing down Brandon Bass, Josh Smith hitting a hook over Hedo Turkoglu. It looks so pedestrian.

But Memphis and Atlanta are winning (the latter leads its series 3-1), and they are doing so even as they have played as more exaggerated versions of themselves so far in the playoffs. For instance, about 15.6 percent of Memphis’ regular-season possessions ended with a post-up play; that number is up to 21.5 percent against San Antonio, according to the stat-tracking service Synergy Sports. The Hawks finished about 13.5 percent of their regular-season possessions with an isolation play — an average number. But in the playoffs, they are isolating on nearly 21 percent of their possessions, a giant increase.

Both teams are also running more pick-and-roll plays, a trend they share with nine of the other 14 playoff teams. The Spurs lead the way in this regard; a whopping 27.3 percent of their playoff possessions have ended with a shot from either the ball-handler or roll man on the pick-and-roll, compared to a rate of about 21 percent in the regular season.

Teams get more conservative in the postseason. As John Hollinger noted on Friday, teams are playing at a much slower pace in these playoffs and turning the ball over less. But the changes are deeper than that: Teams change their style of play to focus on what they find more comfortable and less risky, and once they find something that works, they stick with it. Only three teams — San Antonio, Chicago and Portland — are getting out in transition more in these playoffs than they did in the regular season, according to Synergy. Only five teams are getting fewer shots in the playoffs than they did in the regular season from either of the two participants in the pick-and-roll. That statistic may actually understate the degree to which the league falls back on its signature play in the spring, because a lot of shots Synergy logs as “spot-up
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