What is the story about?
Another inferior, short-handed opponent, another Spurs blowout victory. They’re done taking lesser teams lightly as they continued their trend of blowing everyone out, both good and bad, and this time, the Memphis Grizzlies were the victim. While the Spurs admittedly got complacent and took the second quarter off after a 38-19 first quarter, they came back out with renewed focus to put the game away for good in the third, which was on massive highlight reel of dunks and threes, for the 123-98 win.
Victor Wembanyama led seven Spurs in double figures with 19 points, 15 rebounds, 7 blocks, 3 assists and 3 steals. (The odds of a triple-double and/or 5×5 game would have been pretty decent had he be needed in the fourth quarter). GG Jackson led the severely short-handed Grizzles with 20 points and 7 rebounds.
Observations
- Spurs play-by-play announcer Jacob Tobey revealed on X earlier today that at least for this year, the local broadcasters will not be doing the first round of the playoffs. I’m guessing this is a result of the NBA having contracts with so many different streaming services (which has drawn criticism for the impact on everyday viewers), but I for one will miss them. As a League Pass user, I’ve had to put up with listening to a lot of national announcers (or the other team’s announcers, in Prime’s case) who don’t know what they’re talking about. I know Jacob and Sean Elliott get their share flack, but they’re better for the Spurs viewing experience than the other options at least 90% of the time.
- As the regular season winds down and the rest-a-thon continues, it was De’Aaron Fox and Luke Kornet’s turns to nurse their boo-boos (lower back and right knee, respectively). It hardly mattered in the first quarter. They hit 10-13 to start the game, including 8 makes in a row and went on a 17-0 run. It was a dunk and three-fest against the hapless Grizzlies, whose best available player was rookie Cedric Coward. (Oh, and Taj Gibson! Who knew he was still around?) Overall, the Spurs shot 15-24 to lead 38-19 after 12 min. For a while it was looking like it would be worse, with Memphis stuck at 9 points nine minutes in, but they hit a few threes to make it look less terrible.
- After all that beautiful ball movement in the first quarter, the Spurs’ offense fell off a cliff as they only scored 5 points across the first six minutes and 19 overall in the second, but the Grizzlies only managed to put a six-point dent in the lead since defense, especially Wemby swatted everything Memphis put up. But, the Spurs got the message at halftime and returned to wheeling, dealing, dunking and scoring, outscoring the Grizzlies 41-20 on a Wemby buzzer-beater three to get up 98-64 to put the game away
- This whole game was about posterizations. Just off the top of my head, I remember massive dunks from Wemby, Stephon Castle, Julian Champagnie, Devin Vassell and Keldon Johnson and Carter Barter. I’ll Highlights take care of showing them all off tomorrow, but goodness, I’m not sure I’ve seen so many dunks from different players in one game before.
- It was another massively unselfish night for the Spurs, with _ assists on _ made field goals.
- I know the Spurs’ peak didn’t exactly combined with the Ja Morant-era Grizzlies’ peak, but whether it was Marc Gasol, Morant or Jaren Jackson Jr,. Memphis has found a way to be a thorn in their side for the last 15 years. Even last year, when they were also the most injured team in the league and often JJJ plus a G-League, they could a way to make the Spurs work for the win. As a result, watching this kind of onslaught against this team in that arena feels kind of surreal.
- Despite having a harder remaining schedule, I don’t foresee the Thunder losing two more games than the Spurs with nine remaining to allow them to tie things up and take the top seed, but they had to lose someday for there to be a chance, and they finally did tonight in Boston. (Reverse jinx activated.) You don’t have to give up standings watching just yet. Also, one more Spurs win or Lakers loss will clinch the second seed for the Spurs, since they also hold the tiebreaker in that series.
