CREDIT: Larry Kuzniewski

Larry Kuzniewski

Last night, the Grizzlies played a much better game than in the first two games of their first round matchup against the San Antonio Spurs, but they still struggled to execute down the stretch of the fourth quarter, and lost at home to go down 0-3 for the series.

When I talked to Hubie Brown on Thursday, he told me the Grizzlies would have to play a perfect game on Friday to win, and that’s almost what they did. Tony Allen was moved to the starting unit in place of Chris Andersen, giving the Grizzlies a much smaller look than they’d gone with in games 1 and 2, and that contributed to a solid start (which, in this series, means they were only down 8 after the first frame).

Larry Kuzniewski

Led by scoring outbursts from Lance Stephenson and Xavier Munford, though really seven different guys scored points in the frame, the Grizzlies’ second quarter was easily the best they’ve played in the whole series. They outscored the Spurs 25-18 in the second quarter to make it a one point game at halftime. The Spurs never really got their offense clicking last night, and Tony Parker (to pick the most obvious one) really didn’t have a very good game. The Grizzlies defense hounded the Spurs relentlessly in a way they hadn’t in the first two games, and at times, you could tell the crowd started to believe the Grizzlies could win—the energy changed in the building, and it started to feel like a real playoff game instead of a polite appearance to support the team.

The third quarter started a little rough, but the Griz quickly got their feet back under them, and an under-the-weather JaMychal Green made an appearance. Green was listed as probably with the dreaded “flu-like symptoms” before the game, but he fought through it, finishing with 10 points in 13 minutes, a perfect 5 for 5 from the field. Between Green and Matt Barnes making big buckets at crucial points, the Grizzlies finished the third with a 71-70 lead.

Speaking of the third quarter, failed mascot sidekick Natch the Black Bear showed up and ruined the birthday party of Grizz, so Grizz did this to him (and yes, I left out a “from” in this sentence, but I didn’t feel like re-uploading the video):

This was after Grizz had hit two of Natch’s friends with folding chairs and thrown Natch through one table already. While the arena chanted along with playoff/Hustle and Flow staple “Whoop That Trick.” It was one of the most “Memphis” things I’ve ever seen. I’m sure some of the Spurs were confused.

The fourth quarter is where the Grizzlies’ perfect game finally started to fall apart, as a lack of execution down the stretch—and a brilliant run of play from former Finals MVP and reigning Defensive Player of the Year Kawhi Leonard—undid the Grizzlies’ attempts at an upset. By the 8 minute mark of the quarter, the Spurs were starting to get easy looks in a way they hadn’t all night, and you could tell the momentum was starting to shift. Leonard had 13 points in the quarter, but the real backbreakers were the two steals, and the 3’s he made from the corner all night. He kept finding a way to get open and catch the Grizzlies over-helping, and punished the Griz relentlessly for it.

Ultimately, the game was about what I expected it to be, though the Grizzlies certainly played as close to a perfect game as they could without getting the win. They fought hard, they rallied around a crowd that really wanted a reason to be loud, they defended with a tenacity that we’ve only seen in fitful spurts since The Great Injury Plague of 2016 began in earnest, and they were this close to holding it together long enough to win. The offense stopped working down the stretch, and the Spurs finally started to figure it out on both ends of the floor, and ultimately tha t was all that mattered.

Larry Kuzniewski

Asked about the starting lineup switch after the game, Dave Joerger said the intention behind going small was to “create indecision about where [the Spurs] could help from.” That worked last night, and it worked well. For a guy with a bum hamstring who didn’t make a single shot out of eight attempts, Tony Allen had an almost entirely positive impact on the game in his 33 minutes; starting him instead of Chris Andersen was clearly the right idea. The day’s injury news about Jarell Martin left Joerger’s hands even more tied, rotation wise.

Game 4 on Sunday promises to be an interesting one. The game is at noon on Sunday in a town that feels like it has more churches than families sometimes. Down 0-3, it seems unlikely that the Grizzlies will be able to stave off the inevitable in the series, though Friday night’s game showed that the Spurs are mortal if the Grizzlies have the right gameplan. It might be the last game of the season, and if that’s the case, it will be a footnote to what happened last night, when the leftovers of the Goon Squad—I saw that “Spoon Squad” was trending on Twitter last night, in reference to Matt Barnes’ comment that the Grizzlies were “showing up to a gunfight with some spoons”—tried to play a perfect game and almost pulled it off.

And a mascot drove another mascot through a table from a ladder on the club level of the arena. Memphis is ever a wrasslin’ town.