The OFFICIAL 2013 NBA Playoffs Thread

The Grizz really need to put Gasol back out there. The team's stagnating without him.

Bayless's decision making is awful on both ends of the court right now.

 

Bayless doesn't know to play on a big stage. The Grizz need to start canning some of these open outside shots.

 

The announcers are laughing at the foul on Randolph. They have spent the last few minutes shaking there heads at the calls.

 

Wow, huge call against Randolph there. Takes an easy two off the board for the Grizz and puts ZBo on the bench with his fifth.

 

Such garbage officiating.

 

Memphis has no shot unless they dominate LAC. It's obvious that the NBA wants Griffin/Paul and the LA market for at least one more round. Why wouldn't they?

 

Grizz have shot 10 more FT's and have 6 less fouls. I havent' been watching it as closely as I should be but doesn't seem to be really biased in LA's favor.

 

I like Darrell Arthur. Helluva backup.

 

CP3 should have gotten a Tech there.

 

Saw that shit comin from a mile away. best closer in the game,

 

Our future center DeAndre Jordan is playing in the playoffs!

 

Memphis actually won the FT and foul battle tonight, quite decisively.

Clips in 5.

 

Great game to see live. What a finish. As for Jordan, he may be in the playoffs but he's always on the bench in crunch time.

 

I just got back from the Clipper game. Watched Gasol and Jordan closely when they were in the game. I would take Jordan no doubt in a trade. But he will frustrate us if we got him. Still better than most of our options. But from what I can see the clippers have no other center. They would need Leonard or #10.

Gasol was slower than I expected in person. Conley, Prince and Allen make that defense. Not their bigs. I would take Allen any day. And on the clippers I would take....... Matt fucking Barnes. I hate that guy, and his stats are not impressive, but he is everywhere causing havoc. We need a guy like him. But most of all I would love to steal Tony Allen from Memphis. Love his game.

Clippers bench is deep. But Bledsoe is over rated from what I saw. Excellent back up, but CP3 saying he will be starting for someone else next year.......that is him trying to get his buddy a big contract. The guy is exciting, but has no outside shot .

 

Memphis is missing Rudy Gay's ability to create his own scoring. Tayshaun Prince pretty much is over the hill right now. It was a decent move for the regular season, but watching Memphis try to score consistently is painful.

 

It wasn't really. I posted about a call or two that were bad, but overall, this series is as hard as they come to officiate with all of the physicality. The only thing that annoys me is the flopping from Paul and Griffin, but they've actually kept that in check for the most part this series, at least compared to last year. Now we're only seeing 2-5 flops a game instead of a whole game of it.

At the end of the day, the Grizzlies just need better shooting, and Z-Bo needs to step up. I'm not sure what's wrong with him, because he's missing a lot of rebounds that he normally gets. Rebounding has never been one of Gasol's strengths, so if he has a weak night on the boards, I'm not going to persecute the guy, but that's what Z-Bo's made his living off of. I have to wonder if he's just tiring himself out guarding Griffin to the point where he misses the easy rebounds on the other end of the floor.

One thing that's been bothering me though, hearing analysts on ESPN and reading people's comments, is that a lot of people assume that if we had Rudy Gay, then we'd have more offensive firepower. People are still looking at that trade as a bad deal. The reality is that we'd probably be even worse with him. He can score a lot, but he does so at the detriment of the team. He's not, and has never been, a shooter. What the Grizzlies really needed was for the Mayo-for-Allen trade to have gone through. They need a guy that can stroke the longball consistently.

I also think that our bench has been completely exposed, especially in the backcourt. As soon as Conley, Allen, and Gasol hit the bench, the Clippers went on that big fourth quarter run and created a huge deficit for the starters to dig the team out of when they came back on the court. In the regular season, we've had the luxury of resting our starters and playing our bench big minutes, because we've been able to create some distance from the other team. In a close series like this though, having guys like Crawford, Bledsoe, Billups, and Barnes come off the bench is looking like it's going to be the ultimate deciding factor. Gasol and Conley both had to play 44 minutes. Gasol, particularly, is not built for 44 minutes of basketball, but we were helpless without him on the floor.

Also, Chris Paul, as much as I don't like the guy, and as much as I think he's the biggest flopper in the game, is really the reason they won this game and will probably continue on to win the series. How can you defend a guy that drains off balance fadeaways with a hand in his face? He's unreal...

 

It's been leaked that Gasol will win DPOY, but like I've been saying for the longest time, Tony Allen is the reason this team is so great on defense, and he should be the real DPOY. Gasol's always been slower than most, but not only has this series been played at a faster tempo than we've played all season long, but Gasol had to play 44 minutes. As for his defense, he's one of the better defenders in the league (not DPOY over Tony Allen by any stretch but still a great defender). His value really comes from QB'ing the defense. He's probably the most defensively aware big man I've seen play the game in a long time. There are some guys like Chandler and Howard that'll get blocks and all that entertaining stuff based on their physical attributes, but Gasol's seeing rotations ahead of time and always barking out orders to his teammates, and he never leaves his feet to make plays he can't make that might look cool on highlights. Rather he's always just keeping vertical and doing what most players his size should do at the rim. That sort of overall impact is invaluable.

As far as stealing TA, God I hope not. He's what makes this team go, and he's by far the city's favorite player. The word is that the reason the team made both the Gay and Speights trades, even though just one would have put us under the luxury tax, was to give us enough room to sign TA to a big deal this offseason. I really hope our new cheapass owner doesn't skimp on his offer this summer, because he should be the only untouchable player on the roster as far as I'm concerned, and I'm sure the rest of the city shares those sentiments.

 

I did notice that regarding Gasol. He is smart and does direct everything. He can bump down low. But if he has to move quickly to get a loose ball, he will not get there in time.
I am sure he will play better at home as will ZBo. Conley played great tonight other than his FT shooting, and of course Allen.......PA may over pay to get him on name alone.

 

Yeah, that can show on the glass with Gasol as well. When we used to play against him in high school, we'd completely change our offense to wear him out and put him on the bench. Granted, that was about 70 lbs. ago for Marc, he's always been a slower player, but that's just one of those things that we've sorta accepted as a fanbase as a necessary evil. The guy's such a great shooter, passer, defender, and overall smart, unselfish, team-first player, that we'll overlook those rebounds he probably should have moved quicker to, or the loose ball he could have chased down.

I hope they play better at home. The statistics are daunting for a 0-2 deficit, but at the end of the day, your mantra has to be in the situation like that, "Protect home court and just win one game on the road." I wasn't that disappointed with our performance tonight. We had some guys that should have stepped up that didn't, but I think it's ultimately going to be game 1 that'll haunt us. We just played like shit last Saturday.

 

Marc Gasol is garbage. What good is a center if he can't rebound? Where'd you sit, Pinwheel? I was in 301.