The Grizzlies hosted a conference finals game for the first time in the team’s history Saturday night, but this franchise first had a familiar feel. Just like in this series’ second game, in San Antonio on Tuesday, the road team overcame a big early deficit to force overtime, where Tim Duncan took over, giving the Spurs a near-insurmountable 3-0 series lead.
For two nights in San Antonio, the Grizzlies’ starting lineup, which had been brilliant defensively in the regular season and again in the first two rounds of the playoffs, suddenly couldn’t get a stop. But at the outset of Game 3, that unit’s defensive impact returned, more ferocious than ever. The Grizzlies scored their first two baskets off of steals, building an 18-point first quarter lead off seven steals (five from Mike Conley alone) that fed into eight Spurs turnovers and defense that hounded the Spurs into 4-19 shooting when they were able to control the ball.
But it couldn’t last.
“We came out with great energy. We got steals, we were running. We just couldn’t sustain,” Lionel Hollins said after the game. “We subbed and tried to get some rest and we didn’t get production out of some of the people on the bench and then we couldn’t rev it back up when we got back to our starters.”
Spurs coach Gregg Popovich pulled all five of his starters in disgust seven minutes into the quarter.
“Those guys looked like they’d been asleep since Tuesday,” Popovich said.
