- LARRY KUZNIEWSKI
- With nearly six minutes left in the game, the Spur called it quits. They’ll face elimination Wednesday night.
There was nearly six minutes left in the game, the Western Conference’s top seed — a team whose core has won three titles together — in danger of falling behind 3-1. And what lineup did San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich put on the floor? Gary Neal-Danny Green-Steve Novak-DeJuan Blair-Tiago Splitter — three of them playing for the first time tonight, a fourth playing in his first game in the series.
Popovich had seen enough. He’d seen the upstart Grizzlies thoroughly dominate his proud, experienced team — 61-21 in the regular season — for the previous 18 minutes, and he knew there was no coming back. There was only a chance to regroup and make sure key players were rested and ready for an elimination game back in San Antonio Wednesday night. Grizzlies fans have seen a lot this season, but nothing like this.
And now the Grizzlies find themselves on the precipice of doing something that’s only been done once before — knocking off a #1 seed in a first-round, seven-game series.
I asked one visiting media member, freshly emerged from the Spurs locker room, what the mood was. “Funereal” was the response. The Grizzlies locker room I’d just come from? Calm, composed. Happy but unimpressed with an accomplishment that doesn’t yet amount to much.
“We just won the game,” Marc Gasol said in the locker room afterward, shrugging. “We understand that we have not won anything yet.”
