Leonard mauls Memphis
Playing the Memphis Grizzlies in the postseason keeps bringing out the best in the San Antonio Spurs.
Kawhi Leonard matched his postseason high with 32 points and San Antonio rolled to a 111-82 victory over Memphis on Saturday night in Game 1 of the first-round playoff series.
“That’s what star players do,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said about Leonard. “It’s the playoffs, he stepped up. He made a lot of great plays for us. He’s a very determined individual. He’s just beginning to come into his own and realizing the effect he has on a game on both ends of the court.” Game 2 is Monday night in San Antonio. Memphis was outscored by 34 points over the final three quarters in dropping its ninth straight postseason game to San Antonio.
“It got ugly quick,” Memphis coach David Fizdale said. “They just got after us, they really got after us. They upped their pressure.”
Marc Gasol had 32 points, but only seven in the second half as the Grizzlies fell behind by 36 points. Memphis point guard Mike Conley finished with 13 points, but did not score after making a layup with 8:40 left in the second quarter.
San Antonio guard Danny Green had only two points, but blocked four shots and had a steal while primarily defending Conley.
“It wasn’t just me,” Green said. “Patty (Mills) did a great job on him (and so did) Kawhi, Tony (Parker). We had different spurts on him, threw different looks at him. Try to wear him down a little bit. We have a lot of good defenders around here.”
The Grizzlies made their first five shots and first four 3-pointers in racing to an 18-7 lead. Gasol hit a turnaround jumper and 3-pointer on Dewayne Dedmon to open the game.
“We started to jump into the ball-handler,” Leonard said. “We tried to get an extra body on Marc Gasol, he got going, as well as Conley. Just trying not to make it easy for those guys. They are great players and they can win a game.”
San Antonio would not take its first lead until there was 8:53 remaining in the second quarter, but raced to victory once it did.