Why the Grizz (Probably) Wont Fold
This is how the Spurs come for you, or rather, a wheezing, ghastly, between-this-world-and-the-next version of the familiar dance:
Manu Ginobili hits a slinky jumper in the corner. It was reversed from a three to a two, but San Antonio did not waver, or dissolve. At the buzzer, Gary Neal hit a game-tying three, twisting high over two defenders. This wasn't Bruce Bowen wide open in the corner. Neal took a designed play and made it his own, letting it fray at the edges as necessary.
Dirty and indecent as it may have been by Spurs standards, it was also a jolt, one that set them up to execute like the olden days. Things looked nearly impossible for the Memphis Grizzlies, everything looked easy for San Antonio. The outcome, which felt neither inevitable nor wholly natural, staved off a cruel demise that—let's face it—a lot of America was rooting for. Sports logic demands we talk about a glorious revival, an epic shift in momentum. This was the one game that changed it all. The broken Grizzlies are left to suck on their paws and obediently drop the next two in a row.
All this presumes that fans have insight into some mythic athlete psyche, which is less about how athletes do think, and more about how we want them to. Athletes, by and large, are confident to a fault, if not egomaniacs. They can be stunned into submission, or just plain out-manned. And certainly, we have seen teams' spirits broken by a single dagger of a shot; the rest of the game, or the series, is downhill from there. But to assume that the Grizzlies are done, simply because we ourselves would feel devastated, or because we like the way a certain story goes, is a colossal mistake.
Sure, the Spurs will try and push the Grizz toward what's expected, since the Spurs abide by template. That's what we as fair-weather observers are inclined to go along with, too. However, it likely doesn't enter the minds of Tony Allen or Zach Randolph at all. They wouldn't be in this position, up 3-2 on the Spurs and headed home, if it did. Does this team scare? Do they shell-shock beyond the moment of impact? Probably not. It may be hard for us to grasp, but that's the point of pro sports—especially a team like the Grizzlies. What Memphis lacks in virtuosity, it makes up for in intangibles, a harsh, mutant version of those sainted Little Things that don't get coached into players from a young age. They're what happens when growing up runs head on into the most stubborn, and crass, kind of athletes.
On Monday, Thunder point guard Russell Westbrook cost OKC the game by jacking up shots, darting into the lane blind, and worst of all, ignoring Kevin Durant, who led the league in scoring during the regular season. In Oklahoma City's series-clinching win last night, Westbrook awkwardly deferred to a white-hot KD. Durant finished with 41 and Westbrook caught just as much hell as he had after Monday's loss. This year, Westbrook seems incapable of slipping into the flow of the game—the very quality that allows Durant to be both unobtrusive and absolutely ruthless.
The situation can be hard to make sense of, at least past the "Westbrook just doesn't get it"—which really means "This athlete is not behaving in ways that make sense to me, or my expectations." I liked David Roth's line better: "What do I really know about what it's like to be a twenty-two year-old millionaire who is amazingly good at scoring a basketball?" The studio crew on TNT certainly did, at some point. But as they too rake Westbrook over the coals, you have to wonder: is the athlete brain real or simply imagined? The more we acknowledge that the Grizzlies or Westbrook are facts, not deviations, the harder it is to try and get inside their heads in the first place.
http://www.gq.com/blogs/the-q/2011/04/why-the-grizz-probably-wont-fold-1.html#ixzz1KqPfr0xpLink
Just saw Zbo had 26, 11 and 6. Conley had 20, 5 and 5. 
