The Lead:
- LARRY KUZNIEWSKI
- Marc Gasol’s triple-double flirtation was the highlight of a lackluster team performance.
The Grizzlies finally found the intensity level they needed Wednesday night against the Sixers, but they found it down 88-73 and with under 8 minutes left in the game, a confluence of time and score in which effort would have to be married with near-perfect execution to complete a comeback, and near-perfect execution was not there.
Mike Conley and Zach Randolph, who had been lackluster or worse all night, led a 9-2 Griz run, scoring or assisting on every point, while the team defense found the right mix of urgency and cohesion, holding the Sixers without a field goal for more than four minutes in the middle of the quarter.
A three-point play and subsequent steal from Randolph lead to a fastbreak that would have cut the Sixers lead down to 6 with five-and-a-half-minutes to play, but Tony Allen killed the momentum with a familiar but ill-timed missed lay-up, the first of a string of miscues that sapped the Grizzlies’ momentum: A forced post feed to Randolph that was picked off. Wayne Ellington missing his first three-point attempt in his 25th minute. Consecutive layup attempts (from Ellington and Randolph) blocked by Sixers center Spencer Hawes. And then a Marc Gasol pass sailing through Allen’s hands.
When Sixers swingman Dorell Wright hit a three-pointer with Allen draped over him on the next trip down, the Sixers were back up by 11 with about three minutes left and hope was pretty much lost.