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Grizzlies vs. Spurs Game 1, NBA Playoffs 2013: San Antonio blasts Memphis, 105-83

2013-05-19T22:01:18Z

Tony Parker got the Spurs' engine churning on Sunday, and San Antonio cruised to a 105-83 blowout of the Memphis Grizzlies in the AT&T Center to open the Western Conference Finals.

Parker went about his work efficiently, scoring 12 points and recording six assists in the first half en route to 20 points and nine assists on 9-of-14 shooting for the day.

San Antonio's three-point shooting did the Grizzlies in, and there was little need for the big man rotation of Tim Duncan, Tiago Splitter and Boris Diaw to score more than their combined nine points. The Spurs connected on 48.3 percent of their three-point attempts and shot 52.6 percent from the floor for the game.

For more on the series visit: Pounding the Rock Grizzly Bear Blues

Memphis' Zach Randolph scored two points and shot 1-for-8 from the field, while Marc Gasol and Mike Conley combined to shoot 12-of-28 from the field as Memphis shot 43.2 percent on the afternoon. Quincy Pondexter led Memphis with 17 points off the bench.

Randolph went scoreless in the first half as the Spurs built a lead by as many as 20 points. San Antonio did its best work in spacing the floor and drawing Memphis' perimeter defense into the paint on drives.

The result was a bevy of wide-open three-point opportunities.

The Spurs hit 6-of-13 triples in the first half and took a 51-37 lead to the locker room. They went steadily through the first half of the third quarter with a double-digit lead, but the Memphis bench led by Pondexter and Jerryd Bayless went on a 10-0 run to cut their deficit to 62-56 with less than four minutes to play in the quarter.

The single-digit deficit was short-lived.

Manu Ginobili answered in succession with a three-pointer, a trip to the foul line, an assist on a Matt Bonner three-pointer and then a drive to the hoop to help San Antonio finish the third on a 11-1 spurt over the last four minutes of the quarter.

In the fourth quarter, the storyline hardly deviated from the Spurs' continued domination. Randolph scored his first points on a tip-in with 9:30 left in the game after missing his first seven shots, but San Antonio blew the game open as the Memphis defense wilted.

Answering questions for Game 1

Can Tony Allen slow Tony Parker?: The answer to this question isn't all that clear. Conley started the day on Parker and Allen didn't get much time to break down the shifty Spurs point guard. As a whole, San Antonio rode Parker early and the offense opened up for other players like Ginobili to break down the defense on their own.

Who dominates pace?: The Spurs controlled the game from the start and finished off the Grizzlies with the same impressive ball movement in the fourth quarter. Their penetrate-and-kick game was deadly for the Grizzlies, who with their larger lineup struggled to switch on screens or chase San Antonio off the three-point stripe.

Who wins on the glass?: The relatively even rebounding totals didn't reflect who won the paint battle. San Antonio players continually found themselves in the paint, but they greedily kicked the ball back out for three-pointers rather than take the inside attempts. Tim Duncan scored just six points, and the Spurs were fine by losing the points-in-the-paint battle, 32-30.

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Grizzlies vs. Spurs score update: Memphis pushes back late in first half to trail 51-37

2013-05-19T20:38:19Z

The San Antonio Spurs led by as many as 20 points in the first half of their Western Conference Finals opener against Memphis, but the Grizzlies made a late second quarter run to bring the score to 51-37 at halftime.

Tony Parker was hot, Zach Randolph was scoreless, and once the two squads settled in, the back-and-forth became more of what was expected prior to tipoff. Now the Grizzlies just need to manage a run of their own to get back into the thick of things.

Here's how the game broke down compared to the three questions heading into the matchup.

Can Tony Allen slow Tony Parker?

Like Lionel Hollins did in Game 1 against the Thunder, he didn't put Tony Allen on the opposition's best scorer off the bat. Mike Conley started the game chasing Parker around screens both on and off the ball, and the results weren't in Memphis' favor.

Allen finally moved onto Parker in the second quarter, but that session began with Parker turning a long rebound into a fastbreak layup due to the crossmatch between Conley and Allen.

All in all, a very strong start for the Spurs point guard, who scored 12 points and had six assists on 5-for-6 shooting in the first half of Sunday's game.

Who dominates pace?

San Antonio shot out of a cannon from the tip, building a 31-14 lead after the opening quarter. The tempo was calculated and dictated to the Spurs' advantage. They pushed when the opportunities were there via turnovers or long rebounds, but otherwise operated just fine in the halfcourt. The ball movement was hectic but organized, and San Antonio was relentless in its attack, which opened up a number of drive-and-kick opportunities. Overzealous help defense sucked the Grizzlies in and San Antonio went 6-for-13 from behind the three-point line.

Who wins on the glass?

The Grizzlies came in as the second-best team in the league in terms of offensive rebounding rate, but they didn't record an offensive rebound until the final five minutes of the half. Reserve forward Ed Davis tipped in a miss on the first second-chance opportunity for Memphis, but prior to that it was San Antonio getting the bigger grabs. The Grizzlies earned three more offensive boards to even the tally with the Spurs at four apiece, but the tone was set early.

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NBA Playoffs, Grizzlies vs. Spurs: Split season series previews Western Conference Finals

2013-05-19T16:18:02Z

The Memphis Grizzlies and San Antonio Spurs haven't exactly met one another with their current roster makeups. The trade of Rudy Gay from the Grizzlies came after three of those games, and in the series finale the Spurs held out Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Kawhi Leonard. But if their season series is any indication, the Western Conference Finals matchup that begins Sunday could be quite the nailbiter.

The two teams split their four contests — two went into overtime, two ended with a margin of a single possession and two included buzzer-beating shots.

A Game 1 of the playoff battle could include a great deal of feeling one another out, but the trend over the regular season included big games from Tony Parker -- he averaged 25.5 points and 6.5 assists per game against Memphis this year -- and enough San Antonio defense to limit Memphis' big men. Nonetheless, Memphis had enough elsewhere to pull out two games.

Here's how the regular season series went down.

More: Pounding the Rock Grizzly Bear Blues

Dec. 1, 2012

The Grizzlies visited San Antonio in the series opener between the two teams. The Spurs were coming off their nationally-televised appearance against the Miami Heat that cost the club $250,000 for sending Duncan and Tony Parker home to rest, and the fresh-legged duo combined for 57 points in a 99-95 overtime victory. It was the worst shooting games for each team in the season series as neither shot above 42 percent.

Jan. 11, 2013

In another overtime contest, the Grizzlies pulled out a 101-98 home win to stave off a big game from Parker. The Spurs point guard scored 30 points and hit a 27-foot jumper at the end of regulation to force overtime. But that's where Gay took over. He hit the go-ahead jumper with 27 seconds left in overtime and Memphis held San Antonio to a single three-pointer in the extra period. The Grizzlies surprisingly scored 19 fastbreak points in the victory, a sign that the usually-apprehensive tempo of Lionel Hollins' team could find success against the Spurs in the right spots.

Jan. 16, 2013

Memphis' heads must have gotten bloated from the Jan. 11 victory against the Spurs. They lost to the Dallas Mavericks by 21 points the next night, fell by 26 points to the Los Angeles Clippers two days after that, then made a trip to Texas where they lost 103-82. Memphis scored only 28 points in the second half, its big man duo of Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph combined for just eight boards and the team scored a measly 26 points in the paint. Part of that was due to Duncan, who scoured the paint to record five blocks. San Antonio shot 58 percent from the floor in the rout.

April 1, 2013

The only game played after Gay was traded to Toronto went in Memphis' favor. The Spurs kept it close without Duncan, Ginobili and Leonard, but the Grizzlies won 92-90 on a Mike Conley driving layup with 0.6 seconds left. On another night where Gasol and Randolph put in lackluster scoring efforts, the Grizzlies got help elsewhere. Tayshaun Prince had 11 points, six rebounds, four assists and three steals and Jerryd Bayless scored 17 off the pine to push Memphis over the top.

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