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Face 99, Heel 89: Grizzlies/Warriors Game 3 Diary

CREDIT: Larry Kuzniewski

Larry Kuzniewski

Last night, the Grizzlies beat the Golden State Warriors 99-89 and took a 2-1 lead in their Western Conference Semifinal series. Going into the game, I knew it was going to be crazy; there were too many narratives in play for it not to be. The Grizzlies were challenging the consensus title favorites and actually giving them a run for their money. Mike Conley, who suffered multiple facial fractures in the first round against Portland, played Game 2 in a mask and played out of his mind, with a red eyeball and a swollen face, even hanging on after Warriors big man Draymond Green hit him in the face going for a loose ball (pretty close to after a whistle). Tony Allen was mic’d up for Game 2, and while he was repeatedly stealing Klay Thompson’s lunch money the whole world heard him declaring (repeatedly) that he’s “First team all-defense.” The series now had a clear Bad Guy, and a clear Good Guy, which put it in the terms that Memphis understands best: a wrestling match.

That’s pretty much what Game 3 was, too. I can’t possibly convey the crowd noise, the feeling in the arena, the haze of yellow lint coming off the growl towels emblazoned with “Memphis vs. Errrbody”. But these are my notes on what happened, and why, and what it was like.

Pregame

First things first: Beale Street is packed from one end to the other, with more people than the FedExForum can hold, most of whom have been drinking since some time after lunch. There are reports that people are yelling “FIRST TEAM ALL DEFENSE” back and forth at each other, randomly, without provocation. Memphis is a strange and beautiful place.

Inside the building, there are the customary growl towels on every seat. This time they say “Memphis vs. Errrbody” and there’s also a mask in every seat, for Mike Conley, who—and I don’t know how you could’ve forgotten this already—is playing with a broken face. Like, his face has fractures in it, which were surgically repaired with titanium bits. The Golden State Warriors Twitter account tweets out a picture of the empty arena and says:

I don’t know that it feels much like home when there are 18,119 inebriated Memphians screaming at them. Grizzlies fans showed up to this one early, showed up having had a couple of adult beverages, and it was clear that they had all made plans for Sunday that did not involve speaking above a whisper. The Forum sounded like the inside of a jet engine during the Grizzlies starting lineup.

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First Half

11:33, 1Q – The first shot of the game for the Grizzlies is a Zach Randolph three point attempt as the shot click expires. If that’s a sign of things to come, it’s going to be a long night.

9:40, 1Q – Steph Curry comes around a screen expecting to be wide open for a shot attempt and Tony Allen is five feet away from him and closing out hard. Curry shoots anyway, but he airballs, clearly not ready for what was waiting on him. On the next Warriors possession, Draymond Green screens Conley off Curry by holding Conley against his back so that Conley can’t go one way or the other around him. Game 2 was physical, but Game 3 is starting out as a slugfest. These guys are going to feel this in the morning.

3:23, 1Q – Gasol gets Draymond Green going the wrong way and lays it in, tying the game at 17. The crowd is loud, and things are going the Grizzlies’ way, but the Grizzlies’ bench is about to start their shift, and that’s been bad news so far in this series. In Game 2, the Griz bench leaked points out of the lead and needed the starters to bail them out and hang on. It’s already clear that that isn’t going to work tonight—that Golden State came to play, and mediocre isn’t going to cut it.

Larry Kuzniewski

2:21, 1Q – Steph Curry is missing shots. Open ones, contested ones, all of them. He’s just missing stuff. I’m not sure whether this is good or bad. It’s good, of course, because he’s not scoring points, but it’s bad, because it means he’s going to be “regressing” upwards to the mean later, and probably go on a hot streak at the worst possible time for the Grizzlies. It’s both good and bad that he’s so cold early. Honestly, though, it’s mostly just weird. Steph Curry doesn’t miss, not like this. He just looks totally out of sorts.

10:36, 2Q – Beno makes a layup without meeting any resistance whatsoever. He just runs straight to the hoop and lays it under reverse. It looked like the Warriors didn’t think he was acually going to score, which, unlike his fellow backup PG Nick Calathes, is pretty much the thing that he’s best at out of all basketball skills. More importantly: if the Grizzlies bench is actually going to show up to this one and be able to produce against the Warriors reserves, Golden State might be in for a long night. But what do I know. It’s 27-20 Grizzlies right now and I don’t feel good about that in the least. I don’t feel good about any lead against the Warriors until the final buzzer sounds and the game is over—they can score too many points too quickly. No lead is ever safe.

7:30, 2Q Vince Carter grabs a rebound over Steph Curry, Draymond Green, and Klay Thompson, all of whom were probably in diapers when he started college, and gets the putback, which ignites the crowd. On the ensuing Warriors possession, Jeff Green steals the ball and starts running down the court while the crowd is absolutely roaring like I don’t think I’ve heard it do… …and then Green, instead of trying to dunk it, passes it to Nick Calathes, who is standing wide open in the corner.

Turns out the reason Nick Calathes is wide open in the corner is that he’s still wearing his warmups, because he is not currently checked into the game. He’s on the bench. He is standing in the corner because that’s where the bench is.

It’s hard to overstate how primed the Forum crowd was to shake the whole building to pieces if Green had actually followed through with one of his trademark Statue of Liberty transition slam dunks. It could’ve been the loudest sound recorded in the Memphis metro area since Black Sabbath and Van Halen played the Coliseum in 1978. Instead, it was nothing.

1:56, 2Q – I stopped taking notes because it’s just starting to feel weird that the Warriors are struggling so much. It feels like the Clippers Game 1 from 2012, where things are working a little too well, even though that’s clearly not what’s happening; the Warriors are being completely taken out of their game. The difference is in that game, the Grizzlies got out to a huge lead by shooting the lights out, something they can’t do on a regular basis. Not tonight. They’re playing deliberately and playing very physical defense and it’s got the Warriors flummoxed. Still, it feels too good to be true.

Larry Kuzniewski

1:11 TA steals the ball and Klay Thompson’s soul behind the arc. Knocks the ball away, Thompson recovers, and then Tony just rips it out of his hands. A “First team defense” (clap clap clap-clap-clap) chant breaks out in the arena, one that I’m glad NBA Commissioner Adam Silver was in the house to be deafened by. The next trip down the court, he jumps a pass and steals the ball again. At this point, there are 25 seconds left in the half, the Grizzlies are up 55-39, and the building may or may not actually be shaking.

Halftime

It occurs to me at halftime that though the Warriors were undoubtedly a very special team during the regular season, there’s one thing that all those comparisons to the ’96 Bulls left out: by the 95-96 season, the Bulls had been in the playoffs every year since 1985 and won three championships. That’s not a “COUNT THE RINGZ” argument, it’s an argument about experience. That Bulls team had been in some serious playoff battles, gotten knocked around by the Detroit Pistons, and had to learn how to play their game through the physically torturous gauntlet that is the NBA postseason.

The Warriors have been in playoff battles, but not that many. They’ve played four series in three years. It’s a world away from a ten year postseason run with three championships—the Warriors have played against the Nuggets, Spurs, and Clippers. That’s not to say that the Warriors can’t win a championship this year; they absolutely can. But they don’t have years of experience playing through these kinds of series together, getting beaten up and figuring out how to advance anyway. If they’re going to win this series, the Warriors have to figure that out, because the Grizzlies are clearly imposing their will on these games, and it’s got the Warriors rattled.

Larry Kuzniewski

Second Half

8:36, 3Q – The Grizzlies call a timeout. The score is now 58-51 Grizzlies, and the Warriors have come out and started the second half on a 12-3 run by getting stops and then getting out in transition—exactly what the Grizzlies have been trying to prevent them from doing for two and a half games so far. They have these kinds of runs in them—this is what they do. The Grizzlies just need to make sure they snuff out these runs before they cut the lead too far.

3:39, 3Q – Mike Conley steps into the lane to draw a charge on Leandro Barbosa while wearing a mask because he has a broken face. This man must not feel pain. At one point in the game, I can’t remember when, there was an official timeout because Conley was bleeding. He removed his mask and the trainers tended to him and then he masked back up and returned to the game. Later on, in the locker room, he told reporters that he’d popped some stitches in his face and that’s why he was bleeding. I wouldn’t keep writing this article if I had popped a stitch, much less playing basketball in a playoff game. NBA players are not like us.

1:59, 3Q – Zach Randolph almost loses the ball out of bounds, but at the last possible second he snaps into form and drills a rainbow jumper from 20 feet out, and the Forum explodes. Randolph now has 14 points and 7 rebounds, and for some reason (foul trouble for Draymond Green and Bogut, mostly) the Warriors are guarding him with Festus Ezeli.

1:06, 3Q – Steph Curry airballs. He has 19 points and it feels like he’s got 5. At the end of three quarters, the Grizzlies lead by 15.

9:33, 4Q – Dave Joerger has had both Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol out of the game for a few minutes now, having played them both for a large stretch of the third quarter. Now, with the two of them on the bench, Marreese Speights has 9 points for the Warriors and Griz players are daring Speights to take 15-foot jump shots, which is probably the only thing he’s good at. Gasol comes back in the game.

6:15, 4Q – Vince Carter can’t stop fouling, so he goes to the bench. I thought Carter played pretty well in the whole game, doing little (important) things rather than trying to make hero shots, but he got stuck with a tough defensive assignment (Barnes) and couldn’t really do much but foul. It’s hard to watch Vince Carter struggle to play basketball. You can tell it’s foreign to him, and he doesn’t like it. My hope is that another summer of recuperation and conditioning and Carter can be back and better next year instead of hurt, but… I guess we’ll see.

Larry Kuzniewski

4:26, 4Q – The Grizzlies haven’t scored in a long time, sitting there with 85 points while the Warriors slowly chip away at their lead. This is the most predictable thing that’s ever happened in a game: the Griz offense looks like a train wreck. Nobody can get to their spots, no one is hitting the shots that they can take, and nothing is working. Golden State, remember, had the best defensive rating in the league. They know how to defend, and they’re doing it right now with the game in the balance.

This is about when the Warriors start getting a friendlier whistle, too, as the Grizzlies are getting a little overaggressive on defense and the officials are doing that annoying NBA thing where they try to even out the number of free throw attempts. The most annoying thing in the world—and NBA refs do it on a regular basis—is when refs start out calling a game very loosely, let teams get used to it, and then tighten up the officiating as the game goes on. Guys get in foul trouble doing things that the same refs watched them do earlier in the game without calling it. If anything, they should call the first half tighter than the second. Set a tone. Don’t change the rules out from under the players as the game goes on. (NBA officiating pet peeve rant over and out.)

Larry Kuzniewski

3:08, 4Q – Harrison Barnes hits a layup and cuts the Grizzlies’ lead to 4 points. Everyone has known this was coming all night; the question is whether the Grizzlies offense, which is about to fall in on itself like Prince Mongo’s dilapidated old mansion on Central, is going to get it together and start making buckets again or whether the scoring drought has gone on so long that it’s too late to find any sort of rhythm again. The building is tense, everyone nervous about the two ways this game could go.

2:45, 4Q – Courtney Lee hits a 3-pointer to push the Grizzlies lead back out to 7 and buy the Griz some time to figure out how to play offense again. Lee has been downright incredible in the playoffs, coming in and hitting shots when it matters and forcing opponents to guard him—almost like he’s a real NBA shooting guard or something. Lee’s poise—and his defense—have been lifesavers against the Warriors.

2:02, 4Q – Marc Gasol hits a three pointer and the building explodes. Marc Gasol then immediately gets whistled for a foul and is disqualified from the game, having gotten called for five fouls in the fourth quarter of the game. Then, once he’s been fouled out, the refs review the 3-pointer and it turns out it was actually a long two. It feels like the Forum crowd might turn French Revolution and chop the refs into pieces, but fortunately that doesn’t happen. Still, hard to deny that the officiating has not helped the Grizzlies down the stretch of the game. Gasol might have broken Hamed Haddadi’s all-time fouls-per-minute record in the 4th, a feat I could’ve gone a whole postseason without seeing.

0:37, 4Q – Mike Conley hits a one-handed layup while falling away from the basket and out of bounds at the same time, and the shot falls in as Conley falls to the floor. The building is now louder than I’ve ever heard it. The crowd knows what’s going on; the Warriors are about to lose a road game and the Grizzlies are about to lead the series. In the back of my head, I’m thinking that this is the way the Oklahoma City series went last year—Griz go up 2-1, then the series plays out to seven—but there are differences.

For one, Oklahoma City and Memphis played a lot of overtime games to determine those outcomes—4 OT games in a row, actually. These games have not been that close, regardless of who won, and in games 2 and 3, the Grizzlies have imposed their will on the game from tip to buzzer. The Warriors are going to have to start just shooting over the defense from 30 feet out and hoping they can stretch things. Fortunately for the Warriors, they have players who can actually do that. Unfortunately for the Warriors, those players have been harrassed into some pretty poor shooting performances so far.

The series is far from over, but now Monday night’s upcoming Game 4 feels like everything. If the Grizzlies can win Game 4 and take a 3-1 lead back out West to Oracle, the pressure eases up a little, for better or for worse. If the Warriors win Game 4, they take back home court advantage for the best-of-3 death match that is the remainder of the series. I think it’s safe to say that Game 4 is now the most important game in the history of the franchise, especially given the way all the other playoff matchups have gone this year. The Grizzlies need to win this series. The Grizzlies can win this series. They can shock the world. But Golden State is not done, not by a long shot. They’re going to come out in Game 4 and do everything in their power to play like the best team in the league; the Grizzlies will have to drag them, kicking and screaming, back into the mud. That’s the only way they know how to win.

Larry Kuzniewski