Last Thursday Gregg Popovich made waves by benching his top four players for their nationally televised game against King James and the defending champion Heat. Popovich's reasoning? His aging team was nearing the end of a long road trip, and the Spurs had a home tilt with Memphis that Saturday. Lost amidst the commissioner's anger and subsequent fine is the real underlying story...the ongoing gamesmanship between Gregg Popovich's Spurs and Lionel Hollins' Grizzlies.
This goes back to the 2010-2011 season. The San Antonio Spurs were sitting atop the western conference with the leagues best record. The Grizzles (who at this point had not won a playoff game in franchise history) fought and clawed their way to a playoff birth with just a few games left to play. After securing their playoff spot in a tightly contested race, Memphis head coach Lionel Hollins purposely benched his (healthy) star players the last few games. Rumors started to spread that coach Hollins was positioning his team to play Popovich's Spurs, who had the number one seed locked up. When asked about it, Spurs guard Tony Parker replied...."They wanted us, now they got us".
Memphis went on to win the series in 6 games, and did so in Spurs like fashion. Memphis smothered San Antonio with their defense and physical play, and made clutch three point shots to close out games. Last year's playoff rematch was foiled by a gritty game seven performance from Chris Paul and the Clippers. The Spurs went on to sweep the Clippers in the second round.
San Antonio and Memphis are once again on a collision course for the playoffs, and Popovich treated their first match up of the year as such. Let's keep in mind that Memphis came into Saturday's match up on the second night of a back to back. The plan worked for Popovich, as San Antonio erased a 14 point second half deficit to take a four point overtime win. With both teams playing so well, their head to head record could loom large in the race for the division title. Nice play by Gregg Popovich. Game on Lionel Hollins. I love this game! follow @plcolter.
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