[Western Conference Finals] Spurs vs. Grizzlies

hibye · May 17, 2013

juicystream said: ↑

It has been 6 years since they went to the finals, despite being a great regular season team. They don't have it anymore.
Click to expand...

B2B WCF appearances is nothing to scoff at tbh. It's actually extremely impressive.

PRaZe · May 17, 2013

Idk.. but

2010: LA Lakers eliminated Oklahoma, won the title.

2011: Dallas eliminated Oklahoma, won the title.

2012: Miami eliminated Oklahoma, won the title.

2013: Memphis eliminated Oklahoma, ?

Ricksmith · May 17, 2013

PRaZe said: ↑

Idk.. but

2010: LA Lakers eliminated Oklahoma, won the title.

2011: Dallas eliminated Oklahoma, won the title.

2012: Miami eliminated Oklahoma, won the title.

2013: Memphis eliminated Oklahoma, ?

Click to expand...

Every team that eliminated a squad with Derek Fisher on it has gone on to win the NBA Finals. A perfect 7-0.

1999 Spurs

2003 Spurs

2004 Pistons

2007 Spurs (Fisher with Utah)

2008 Celtics

2011 Mavericks

and the 2012 Heat

What will happen with the 2013 Grizzlies?

StevieFlight3 · May 17, 2013

Let's hope Grizzlies uphold the legacy of Derick Fisher.

what · May 17, 2013

The better question is how many games go to overtime in this series. I'm setting the over/under at 2, and I'm picking over!

parksn306 · May 18, 2013

Don't care who wins, this will be an EPIC series.

J.R. · May 18, 2013

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Congrats to Memphis for winning the 2013 championship. Just finish the job...</p>— Metta World Peace (@MettaWorldPeace) <a href="https://twitter.com/MettaWorldPeace/status/335899339316674560">May 18, 2013</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Seth · May 18, 2013

I don´t know who will win, ths Spurs seems to have added more depht than the Grizzlies since they beat them in 2011.
Ginobili seems like the only one of their big 3 who is below his `11 level. While Duncan has upped his game a lot.
Memphis has learned to play as a team much better since then, but that could be what kills them as it was "ball to Zach" the way they beat the Spurs the last time. Plus Conley absolutelly dominated Parker.
That last time Ginobili destroyed Allen, but he wasn´t there for the first game which changed the series.
I gave an advantage to the Spurs, and given the schedule i think they can take this series in 5-6 if they can hold their own the first 2 games at SA. That would be the difference to me.
Can the Spurs protect home court for the first 2 games? If they can, Memphis would have a tough time holding the fort after a 3 day break. If they don´t Memphis can finish it off in 6 like in 2011.
Will be for sure the best series these playoffs have to offer. Maybe better than the finals.

VBG · May 18, 2013

Seth said: ↑

I don´t know who will win, ths Spurs seems to have added more depht than the Grizzlies since they beat them in 2011.
Ginobili seems like the only one of their big 3 who is below his `11 level.
Click to expand...

Ginobili was playing with a broken hand IIRC in 2011. He was amazing that year but the injury happened right before the playoffs.

TheFreak · May 18, 2013

If you like Skip Bayless, root for SA.

TheGreat · May 18, 2013

How bad is Leonard's knee?

He's a huge piece for the Spurs to win this series.

tehG l i d e · May 18, 2013

Lance Stephenson is outplaying Melo in a closeout game

Cohete Rojo · May 19, 2013

Player PER
Marc Gasol 19.5
Mike Conley 18.3
Zach Randolph 17.9
Tony Allen 13.2
Tayshaun Prince 10.2

Tony Parker 23
Tim Duncan 24.4
Tiago Splitter 18.7
Kawhi Leonard 16.4
Danny Green 14.1

J.R. · May 19, 2013

 

{Link}

Playoffs: Scouting Grizzlies-Spurs

Insider offers a breakdown of every playoff series using an expert combination of scouting from Amin Elhassan and advanced metrics from Bradford Doolittle to answer three crucial questions. Also included are predictions from the writers and the classic Log5 formula for determining matchup probabilities.

It's a rematch of the 2011 first-round matchup, and although many of the faces have changed, the principals remain the same.

The Memphis Grizzlies are the NBA's "new age" darlings playing an old-school style with bigs who actually play in the paint. And they are on a playoff "revenge" tour, having defeated the two teams that knocked them out of the postseason the last two seasons (Los Angeles Clippers and Oklahoma City Thunder).

Meanwhile, the San Antonio Spurs are the "old reliables" who successfully married today's pace-and-space offensive principles with execution and defensive tenacity. San Antonio easily dispatched the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round but was tested by the upstart Golden State Warriors.

Memphis is the first playoff club seeded fifth or lower to reach the conference finals since the Utah Jazz in 2007 and just the 11th do so since the ABA-NBA merger 36 years ago. Just three have advanced beyond that, the last being the Knicks in 1999. Of course, the Grizzlies aren't just any 5-seed. Their 56 regular-season wins matched the post-merger record for teams seeded that low.

And since Memphis traded away leading scorer Rudy Gay on Jan. 30, only Indiana and San Antonio have been better on the defensive end. But whereas Memphis has never made it this far, San Antonio has now reached the West finals eight times during Tim Duncan's career. That, as much as anything, is why the Spurs enter the series as prohibitive favorites. Here's a scouting preview of the Grizzlies-Spurs Western Conference finals matchup.

Memphis Grizzlies at San Antonio Spurs

QUESTION 1: Tony Parker was a defensive liability in the Spurs' last series. Who wins the Mike Conley-Tony Parker matchup?

Elhassan: Against the Grizzlies in the regular season, Parker guarded Conley earlier in games but would switch off down the stretch and let Danny Green or Kawhi Leonard take the assignment, particularly if Memphis had Jerryd Bayless on the court alongside Conley. Interestingly, in the April 1 matchup, San Antonio shifted its coverage on Conley by going under on screens as opposed to fighting over screens and locking and trailing. By forcing Conley to attempt lightly guarded perimeter shots, they were able to keep him out of the paint, where he was much more dangerous as a playmaker.

On the other hand, Conley similarly matched up with Parker earlier in games but was run ragged by chasing Parker off staggered screens, which led to Bayless or Tony Allen picking up the assignment. Parker wins this matchup because he won't have to worry about the threat of Bayless' or Allen's offense as much as Conley will Green's and Leonard's.

Doolittle: It seems a strange question after a season in which Parker generated some MVP chatter, but the gap between these players has narrowed to almost nothing. The last time these teams met in the playoffs, Parker was coming off a season in which he put up a .555 winning percentage to Conley's .507. This season, Conley held a .607-.605 edge and since he played more minutes, he also placed 11 spots higher in Wins Above Replacement Player (WARP).

The Spurs, indeed, have been better defensively without Parker on the floor during the playoffs, and against Memphis this season, San Antonio was 18.4 points per 100 possessions better on that end without him in a small sample. However, Conley's career true shooting percentage with Parker on the floor is .505 in 529 minutes versus .592 in 137 with him on the sidelines. It's a coin-toss matchup, perhaps the most important of the series, but, given his track record, you've got to give a slight edge to the veteran Frenchman.

QUESTION 2: How will the series play out: "Battle of the Bigs" or "Spurs Spread the Floor?"

Elhassan: It will be a tug of war between the two stylistic approaches. Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph are arguably the best C/PF combo in the NBA and have perfected the high-low action with Gasol at the elbows and Randolph operating from short corners to the front of the rim on duck-ins.

San Antonio, on the other hand, comes with a lot of flexibility: they can play Tim Duncan and Tiago Splitter to match size, or insert Matt Bonner to spread the floor and force one of the Memphis bigs away from the basket, or insert Boris Diaw as a ballhandling/playmaking option out on the floor. The series will swing back and forth between the two different styles, and victory will go to the style that wins: the team that plays one song superbly (Memphis) or the one that can play a lot of different songs well (San Antonio).

Doolittle: One of the reasons the Spurs are able to space the floor so effectively when they need to is because of Bonner's marksmanship as a stretch 5, since he's able to at least provide a modicum of professional-level defense at the other end. That might not work against the Grizzlies. Teams generally have not exploited Memphis' defense by spreading the floor, but the Spurs averaged 102.8 points per 100 possessions in the four regular-season meetings, even though Bonner averaged just 2.3 points. That suggests the Spurs can go big for big with Memphis rather than risk Bonner being exposed on the low block. <br/><br/>As for Memphis, it is what it is. The Grizzlies used standard lineups 97 percent of the time during the regular season and, in the playoffs, have stayed around 95 percent. Memphis isn't going to change now.

QUESTION 3: Which bench can provide the bigger boost? Can Memphis' Tony Allen contain Manu Ginobili?

Elhassan: The Ginobili of old has been replaced by Old Ginobili; he can't consistently provide offensive production like he used to. But like so many other great players who've been visited by Father Time, he can provide sporadic bursts of nostalgia, slashing through the lane with his off-rhythm pace and lighting it up from downtown. In some ways, that makes him more difficult to guard, as he'll go through stretches of ineptitude that lull the defense to sleep, then go on a seven-point spurt in 90 seconds.

Ultimately, unless Ginobili comes out feeling it, expect Allen to spend more time on Parker or Leonard than he does on Ginobili. Overall, San Antonio's bench goes much deeper than Memphis', and Gregg Popovich has shown more confidence to go the end of the bench and divvy out minutes (and get production in return).

Doolittle: So far this postseason, Memphis' reserves have compiled minus-0.21 WARP to San Antonio's plus-0.68, so the Spurs have been much more reliant on depth. However, it's not so much how much value each bench offers as it is how much they have to be used. Quincy Pondexter has been terrific for Memphis and will be needed to help combat the Spurs' forays into small ball. Jerryd Bayless has been prolific, but not efficient, and he's kind of a wild card.

As for Ginobili, his numbers over the past three seasons with and without Allen on the floor have been all over the place -- sometimes great, sometimes awful. Given the lack of a clear trend in that matchup, expect Allen to be only part of the solution for Ginobili, not the entire answer. Allen will be just as valuable as a help defender in this series.

Predictions

Elhassan: Both teams held serve on their homecourts in their regular-season matchups, and three of the four games were decided by a total of nine points, including two overtime games. This will be a hard-fought, slug-it-out series, and at the center of it will be the question, "Is it better to be elite at one style, or be able to play a variety of styles?" San Antonio's roster flexibility, ability to execute and perimeter shooting will be the difference in this series, but barely. One more note: Gregg Popovich has never lost to the same coach twice (other than Phil Jackson), and now Lionel Hollins has a chance to join that very exclusive list. Prediction: San Antonio in seven.

Don't be surprised if: Pondexter sees more minutes in this series. The Grizzlies have been dreadful from 3-point range in the postseason, but Pondexter has been the only one on the roster to shoot greater than 33.3 percent from 3-point range. The Spurs will force Memphis to beat them from the outside, and Hollins will need to space the floor to allow his bigs to flourish.

Doolittle: I foresee a very close series, with each team having trouble winning on the other's home floor. San Antonio's offensive execution and ability to defend the paint -- strengths established back in the 20th century -- should be enough to get them to the Finals. San Antonio has more versatility, depth and firepower from long range. Prediction: Spurs in seven.

Don't be surprised if: The Spurs focus on shooting 3-pointers even more than usual. When the Grizzlies struggled defensively, it was often because their opponent loaded its rotation with 3-point threats. If anything, the strategy could help wear down Randolph and Gasol as they chase shooters down out at the arc.

Log5 probabilities: 57.8 percent chance Spurs win series.
Click to expand...

jgreen91 · May 19, 2013

I'm going to have to say spurs in 7. Looking forward to these two series. Memphis/SA will be epic and Miami/Indiana will be fun. 4 of the smallest market teams in the final four here so there goes all the NBA conspiracy theories.

coffeelover665 · May 19, 2013

Memphis in 6 because it's

dandorotik · May 19, 2013

SA looking great so far.

CasaDolce · May 19, 2013

Parker is balling. Game 1 goes to Spurs.

roxallways · May 19, 2013

Spurs playing well so far. I picked the Spurs in 6 because Grizzlies have problems scoring consistently. I don't see the Spurs having as much trouble with the Grizzlies as they had with the Warriors.

J Sizzle · May 19, 2013

*Waiting for Memphis to realize the game has started*

Forums

[Western Conference Finals] Spurs vs. Grizzlies

Who wins the series?

Spurs sweep

Spurs in 5

Spurs in 6

Spurs in 7

Grizzlies sweep

Grizzlies in 5

Grizzlies in 6

Grizzlies in 7

hibye Member

PRaZe Member

Ricksmith Member

StevieFlight3 Member

what Member

parksn306 Member

J.R. Member

Seth Member

VBG Member

TheFreak Member

TheGreat Member

tehG l i d e Member

Cohete Rojo Member

J.R. Member

jgreen91 Member

coffeelover665 Member

dandorotik Member

CasaDolce Rookie

roxallways Member

J Sizzle Member

Share This Page

About ClutchFans

Rockets Content

Support ClutchFans!