Mike Conley stars as Memphis Grizzlies beat Houston Rockets 93-83: NBA Recap
Paced by Mike Conley’s 21 points Memphis Grizzlies concluded their five games home stand as they out gunned the Houston Rockets 93-83 at FedEx Forum.
Rudy g*y ensured that Memphis got off to a quick start as he netted 16 of his 20 points in the first half.
After facing resistance early, Memphis sprinted to a 13-4 run in the last six minutes to carve out a 21-17 lead by the end of 1st segment.
With g*y on song in the second frame, the Grizzlies banked 31 points against Rockets’ 26 points as the hosts stretched their lead to 52-43 at halftime.
Memphis went on an early 10-4 run in third quarter that augmented their lead to 62-47, with 08:33 in the third. Led by Kyle Lowry’s 13, the Rockets netted 21 while the host shot 20 points, but Grizzlies remained in the comfort
zone 72-64 as the game proceeded towards the decisive segment.
The Rockets shifted gears late in the last frame as with 7:22 to go and the scores at 82-69, they made a 10-2 spurt, and with that they managed to cut the deficit to 84-79 mainly because of Lowry’s brilliant attacking play. However,
that was deterred with a 3 pointer from Conley and afterwards with a turnover from Houston, O.J. Mayo slipped in a layup that pushed the Grizzlies lead back to 89-79 with 2:06 in hand.
With 4 more points to their lead, Memphis added another feather to their cap with 93-83 victory as time expired.
Memphis improved phenomenally on their shooting end, as in the last 6 games they set off slowly on the offense and failed to pick the pace that resulted into 4 out of 6 fiascos. But this time they hit five of their first six shots
and kept on improving, shooting 50% or better in the first three stanzas.
Grizzlies ended with 47.9% from the floor and 85.7% from the charity stripe while Rockets had 38.5% and 83.3% respectively.
Apart of Conley’s 21 points, Rudy g*y was in the groove as he netted 20 and had 8 rebounds while centre Marc Gasol recorded 18 points. With 10 points each Tony Allen and O.J. Mayo played their role in securing the 15th
win of season for Memphis.
Kevin Martin, who has been nothing short of a nightmare for the Grizzlies in the past with an average of 25.8 points, was held scoreless tonight. Kyle Lowry was the highest scoring player of night with 24 points and 6 assists;
Courtney Lee netted 13 points while guard Goran Dragic had 11 for the Rockets, who got nine points apiece from Chandler Parsons, Luis Scola and Samuel Dalembert, the centre also grabbing a game high 10 rebounds.
Rockets coach Kevin McHale acknowledged Memphis effort.
"They played harder than we did tonight," McHale said. "It took us a long time to get engaged in the type of game it was, which was going to be a grind-it-out one, as you could see (from) the first quarter. You can't ease into
a game like that."
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