Grizzlies also take 2-1 lead against Curry’s Warriors

WASHINGTON (AP) — It was a play added to the Washington Wizards’ offense a day earlier, and it was drawn up for a guy, Paul Pierce, who’s been doing this sort of thing for the better part of two decades.

With three defenders near him, Pierce made a fallaway, 21-foot jumper that went in off the backboard at the buzzer to lift the Wizards over the Atlanta Hawks 103-101 on Saturday night, despite playing without John Wall and after letting a 21-point lead evaporate.

As he left the court after giving the Wizards a 2-1 lead in the Eastern Conference semifinal series, Pierce was asked on TV whether he called “Bank!” on the winner.

“I called, ‘Game!’” Pierce declared.

He had more fun at his news conference.

“Usually,” Pierce said, “I like to save those type of shots for later rounds.”

Pierce is 37, and he has a nerve in his back that acts up from time to time, including in the first half Saturday. He won a championship with the Boston Celtics in 2008, and is well aware that time is running out on his career.

It was the second straight day a bank shot at the buzzer won an NBA playoff game. Derrick Rose hit a 3 off the glass to give Chicago a 99-96 victory over Cleveland on Friday.

On Saturday, Washington was missing Wall, its All-Star point guard, for a second consecutive game because of a broken left hand, but it was the Hawks who seemed out of sorts most of the evening. GRIZZLIES 99, WARRIORS 89 In Memphis, Spanish big man Marc Gasol had 21 points and 15 rebounds and Zach Randolph scored 22 for the Grizzlies as they held off a Warriors team that had finished with the best regular-season record in the league.

Golden State, whose explosive offensive talent includes newly-crowned NBA Most Valuable Player Stephen Curry, had comfortably won the first game of the series, improving to 5-0 this post-season.

But with Mike Conley back from surgery to repair a facial fracture, the Grizzlies won game two and Conley was again a key element on Saturday.

He scored a modest 11 points, but that included a driving layup with 39 seconds left that put the game away.

Curry finished with 23 points and six assists, connecting on just eight of 21 shots from the floor and two of 10 from three-point range.