San Antonio Spurs knock down the Memphis Grizzlies 95-88 – NBA Recap
The San Antonio Spurs defeated the Memphis Grizzlies 88-95 on Sunday night at AT&T Centre, San Antonio. Manu Ginobili led the Spurs attack after Tony Parker went down in the first half due to injury in his left calf muscle. Ginobili
scored a season high 35 points and led the Spurs to their 21st straight victory at home.
Spurs were in the action straight away as Ginobili put the first points on board with a jumper. Spurs then rattled the Grizzlies in the next three minutes and raced onto a 12-4 lead. Ginobili hit nine points for the Spurs in the
first quarter, which finished at 26-16 in the Spur’s favour. Zach Randolph added six points in the Grizzlies total.
Grizzlies let loose and tried to drag themselves up in the second section. However, Spurs managed to maintain the lead throughout the second section. Spurs’ power guard George Hill hit 11 points while Sam Young of Grizzlies scored
six points. At the close of second section Spurs scored 43 and Grizzlies were eight points behind with 35.
After Parkers departure, Spurs apparently lost their drive and allowed Grizzlies to level the scores 49-49 midway through the third. Then, Randolph hits two free throws to put Grizzlies in lead 51-49. Grizzlies closed the third
segment with a lead of four points over the Spurs, the scores being 63-59.
Fourth part was the most thrilling one. Both the teams attacked the rim aggressively as the lead changed hand four times. With 58 seconds left and Spurs leading 86-85, Coach Lionel Hollins brought Tony Allen out of the game. This
proved to be a bad move as the Grizzlies seemed clueless in the backcourt without him. The Spurs made nine points in the ensuing stretch to register the victory in their name by seven points.
Matt Bonner and Hill contributed 14 points each for the Spurs. Ginobili also had six rebounds, eight assists and steal two. "I knew it was going to be a long night," Ginobili said. "They are tough defensively. They grab and push,
and are very physical. After we couldn't score a field goal in eight minutes," we knew it was going to get tough. We knew we had to attack that defence to get to the line and get some of those missing points."
Randolph had 10 offensive rebounds, but he wasn’t able to drop the ball back in the hole. Randolph scored 24 points, had 17 rebounds, provided five assists and one steal. He said after the game.
"We couldn't get stops at key moments of the game. Ginobili got to the paint and they shot 33 free throws to our 19. That's the difference."
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