Before the Grizzlies were eliminated from the playoffs in a four-game sweep at the hands of the San Antonio Spurs, Memphis head coach Lionel Hollins summed up his team’s talent disadvantage while praising the effort his team has displayed at the same time.
“We have no room for making half efforts,” Hollins said. “We have to make all‑out effort all game. That’s how we’re in the game. We’re not one of the most talented teams in the league or in the Playoffs. We just go out and we scratch and claw. That’s why fans call us grit and grind, because that’s the way we have to play.”
In Game 4, “grit and grind” became “quit, and that’s fine.”
The Grizzlies knew there was no way they would beat this Spurs team four times in a row to come back in this series, and the team opened with a lackluster effort that was nowhere near what it needed to be to stave off elimination.
Memphis trailed by 10 points after one, but more importantly, the Grizzlies as a team allowed the Spurs to shoot better than 52 percent from the field in that opening period, while managing just 28.6 percent shooting themselves. Add in the fact that the Grizzlies had no answer defensively for Tony Parker, and you get the game’s final result, which was nothing more than the foregone conclusion expected by both teams.
Parker was phenomenal offensively in Game 4, after spending much of the series distributing rather than scoring. He finished with 37 points on 15-of-21 shooting, to go along with four rebounds and six assists.
The Grizzlies were never completely out of it, and cut the Spurs’ lead to three late in the third quarter, and a couple of times early in the fourth. But San Antonio was never in jeopardy of losing the lead or the game, and the Spurs were able to respond each time that the Grizzlies were able to make a push to close the gap.
The run that Memphis made to get to the Conference finals is to be commended, but upon more detailed examination, the Grizzlies beat an extremely flawed Clippers team in the first round, before dispatching with a Thunder team that was playing without the injured Russell Westbrook in the semi-finals.
Once Memphis faced a formidable test against the Spurs, the lack of talent the Grizzlies possess became painfully evident, and Memphis was unable to win even a single game against a truly solid opponent like these Spurs.
Now that San Antonio has moved on to the NBA Finals, fans of the game should do nothing but rejoice. Because while the Heat would appear to be the favorites to repeat as champions, the veteran core of the Spurs, along with the system style of basketball that San Antonio chooses to play should pose plenty of challenges for Miami in the championship round. And with Parker playing at the level he’s been at for the majority of the postseason, Miami’s fate -- unlike that of the Spurs against the Grizzlies -- is anything but a foregone conclusion.