Use Brooms To Clean Up This Mess

<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Remember the boom when they blew up Baptist Hospital?
This one should be louder.

People can line up to watch the blast. They should show it on live television.
It's time to blow up the Memphis Grizzlies, to realize that what has been built can't be salvaged.

The Grizzlies were swept out of the playoffs by the Dallas Mavericks Monday night, 102-76.

Some 15,104 showed up to watch.

That's right, 15,104.

The Grizzlies should take that as a message.

If Michael Heisley and Jerry West think they can fix this mess with a tweak here, a tweak there, and a healthy Damon Stoudamire, they will be greeted by more crowds like this one.

"Another Year, Another Sweep," said one sign.

Cheery, eh?

"We Wanna Believe," said another.

Note the key word: Wanna.

"No, I don't believe now," said Dave Wicker, 30, the sign's author. "After this, why should we?"

Good question, Dave.

But there's no good answer.

Believe in a team that's been swept out of the playoffs three straight times?

Believe in a team that's just good enough to get humiliated?

No NBA team has been swept three straight times before. It's ridiculous to even consider.

And don't even start with that claptrap about bad matchups. The Milwaukee Bucks had a bad matchup this year. They drew the Detroit Pistons. They won a game before the Grizzlies did.

Every playoff matchup for the Grizzlies is a bad matchup. Every year the Grizzlies make splendid players look mythical.

Two years ago, it was Tony Parker and the San Antonio Spurs.

Last year, it was Amare Stoudemire and the Phoenix Suns.

This year, it was Dirk Nowitzki and the Dallas Mavericks who, by the way, had never swept a playoff series until this one.

But then along came the Grizzlies, swaggering into the playoffs on a winning streak, and remember how that was going to make all the difference?

"We thought they were tailor-made for us," said Chucky Atkins.

Exactly.

Until the ball went up.

Um, alterations!

Memphis coach Mike Fratello had this to say about playoff basketball after the game: "The truth comes out."

The truth, then, is that the Grizzlies are hideously mediocre.

Every year, they send a team that can't rebound into the playoffs. Every year, this kills them.

And then they're surprised? Why, exactly?

"We were terrible all year rebounding the basketball," said Fratello.

Not to mention the year before that, and the year before that, and you'd think the personnel side might notice.

A TV guy asked Shane Battier if he could put his finger on the one thing that hurt the Grizzlies in this series.

"Our offensive execution," he said.

Pause.

"And our defensive execution."

That's two, but cut the guy some slack, won't you? Cutting it down that far was hard enough after Monday's miserable performance. </div>

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