[Highlight] The 1st seeded San Antonio Spurs Lose to the 8th Seeded Memphis Grizzlies in the First Round of the 2011 Playoffs
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Keep in mind Manu played with a fractured arm and still was rhe second leading scorer for the team! Legend!!
Following this game Zbo delivered the “I’m a blue collar player, this is a blue collar town, so it’s a fit” interview that cemented him as a beloved part of the franchise forever.
50 for da City, will always be known as the first jersey retired in Memphis. The interview with Doris Burke happens about 22:00
Tim Duncan’s wake-up call. He lost major weight after this and resurged into a top 10 player.
He went full vegetarian and stopped playing computer games
Doubtful on the computer game part
Do you have any idea how much cows blood modern computer games require to play them.
Not a wake up call. Duncan rolled his ankle on the last game of the season, so he played on it and didn’t play well against the Gasol/Randolf combo. Also Ginobili broke his elbow and played on a big brace on it.
Nah that was after the wcf loss in 2012, everyone actually was really upset during this off-season. Because Duncan was awful and looked like he was about to play his last season, but then the lockout happened. So it felt like we were missing out on Duncan’s last season.
You got your history mixed up. You’re right about the lockout. But the lockout happened after the 2011 season, the season in which they lost to the Grizzlies. The Spurs looked like a well oiled machine in 2012, they had 20 straight wins up until OKC beat them 4 times in a row.
I didnt get anything wrong, you have just misread.
After 2011 we thought Tim duncan was borderline done, 2012 Duncan was not a top 10 player. 2013 Duncan was, even made first team all nba.
It was after the 2012 wcf loss that Duncan re-shaped himself. 2012 he was still Role player duncan.
Nope. I disagree. Ask Spurs fans
that was the year they had a 20 game win streak and then lost 4 straight right?
I don’t think he was ever a top 10 player after this. He had crazy playoff moments but he had already not been in MVP convos in a minute
He was All-NBA 1st Team in 2013 (as a C, against a weak crop of candidates at that) and top-7 in MVP voting that season. There was at least an argument to be made, and it was one of the best defensive seasons of his career
I mean, there’s an argument for it, but the way it was stated by OP made it seem like it it was an undisputed fact and not a single season
Casually not mentioning his teammate Tony Parker was ahead of him in the mvp voting and was leading ppg
I mean yeah, you could make the argument that they were both top-10 players that year—Tony was All-NBA 2nd team that season and they made the Finals (and nearly won against an all-time Heatles team)—it takes a team with genuine pedigree and high-end talent (like having two current top-10 players in the league) to do that.
Not sure why Tony being as good as he was precludes Duncan from being that good at the same time
SAS since 07 after this loss: WCF, 1R, 2R, 1R.
Then, after trading Hill for Leonard: WCF, FIN, Champions, 1R, 2R, WCF.
How many teams fall short because they’re missing a key starter who can defend, rebound, and shoot efficiently?
Leonard’s scoring volume during this span may be unremarkable, but this trade and draft pick rebooted the juggernaut in the playoffs.
Not coincidentally, they went 22-6 against MEM since Kawhi joined, including the WCF sweep.
An unremarkable trade made the Spurs a pureblood contender for another 6 years. Not even a blockbuster. And folks were shocked Spurs gave up Hill.
Yeah we were pissed they traded him.
Pure blood contender, I like that.
I wasnt, I knew kawhi was a lotto pick player. Raptors shouldve taken him instead of ed davis
Kawhi was my favorite college player ever; he just did it all. I wanted the Warriors to draft him (although I was happy with Klay after seeing that boy shoot). So I knew when the Spurs got him… what my eyes saw work in college would work in the pros.
Duncan never led a team to B2B Finals appearances before Kawhi
Kobe did though
By your logic, Kobe never led a team B2B Finals appearances (in fact didn’t even get through first round) without Shaq/Gasol.
2004-05 Missed playoffs
2005-06 First round exit
2006-07 First round exit
2014-15 Missed playoffs
2015-16 Missed playoffs
What’s crazy is that Mike Conley is the only guy from this series who is still an active NBA player.
My goat
Manu Ginóbili and George Hill were the only two Spurs players to maintain or exceed their regular season statlines in that series. Manu’s arm was broken and George Hill (who had one of most underrated careers of the 21st century) was only in his 2nd year.
The Grizzlies had a frontcourt that matched up really, really well against the Spurs. Then even though Hill was young, there was good depth ahead of him that arguably hindered his growth. After the season, the Spurs traded Hill for Kawhi’s draft rights. Ended up being a mutually beneficial trade.
did george hill write this
Tbf the narrative for years was that the Kawhi-Hill trade was about as good of a win-win as you ever see in a trade.
Then Kawhi suddenly turned into an MVP candidate and those takes kind of got lost to history
yes
You can tell by the IUPUI writing style
george hill for the draft rights to kawhi leonard and davis bertans doesn’t feel “mutually beneficial”
No way in hell that the Pacers would’ve gone toe to toe with the Heatles if not for George Hill. The team desperately needed a high quality 2-way guard, and Hill was great. There’s no early/mid 2010s contention window for the Pacers without him.
You have to keep in mind that there was tons of positional overlap between Paul George, who we drafted 1 year earlier, and Kawhi. The Pacers had Danny Granger as well, while Lance Stephenson was just starting to show enough promise to justify more development minutes. The team was loaded up on wings/small forwards, but had severe backcourt deficits.
Hill went onto have multiple great 2-way seasons for us, putting up insane advanced stats and staying solid through deep playoff runs. He provided exactly what that team needed to be special.
I’ve always felt like Hill was actually very overrated and had one of the “mid” est careers of the 21st century.
Dude was well above average every season except for his last year, which was average.
He had years where the only guards with better advanced stats were household name superstars.
Extremely good 2-way player who didn’t shrink in the playoffs. Among other things, those budding superstar PG24 Pacers teams wouldn’t have contended without him.
|Year|EPM Percentile (all positions)|
|2010-2011|82nd|
|2011-2012|93rd|
|2012-2013|96th|
|2013-2014|90th|
|2014-2015|97th|
|2015-2016|87th|
|2016-2017|93rd|
|2017-2018|81st|
|2018-2019|84th|
|2019-2020|87th|
|2020-2021|62nd|
|2021-2022|72nd|
|2022-2023|50th|
He was a Derrick White mold before Derrick White, basically
I’ll never forgive him for missing that FT though.
Extremely rude post!
Just kidding. That Grizzlies team was such a pain in the ass to play. IIRC they controlled their first round opponent and lost their final game to set up a matchup with the Spurs. Absolute dogs. Nothing but respect for the GnG era.
Zbo sent old ass Antonio McDyess into retirement.
Zeebo gasol front court was a cheat code
Remember watching this during my freshman year at college. Fuck I’m old
Dude. Don’t even get me started.
Freshman in 2011? Bitch I started college with Orlando Johnson in 2008. (Idk what year he actually started at UCSB but he made the games fun)
I started college in 2004.
How do you do fellow kids?
Yeah
We’re probably about the same age. 2008-16 was just peak basketball IMO. Glad to have experienced it
We not old bro our prime is just starting!
I was a senior and Tuscaloosa had just been obliterated by an EF4 tornado. Power was out city-wide.
I was in the hall of the dorm, sitting under the emergency light, trying to get the score to refresh on Game 5 with the last bit of cellphone battery I had.
It makes me feel really old seeing people younger than me realize that they are old 😭
Grit n Grind was peak ball. Definitely my favorite era for the Grizzlies.
Went toe to toe with west contenders without a Tim Duncan/KD/CP3 level player
Always a pain in the ass to play against even in the series they lost.
Spurs fan here, but I liked watching that squad too.
Reddit gonna downvote you but everyone alive back then knew Duncan blew it this year
He blew it against the lakers in 2008.
In 2009 he lost in the first round
And got swept by the suns in 2010
I mean, losing to good teams in some of the toughest versions of the western conference ever isn’t that huge of a blemish, especially considering he was exiting his prime. In 17 straight 50 win seasons, you’re going to take some L’s. It would be different if he just never won, but he did a lot more winning than losing.
If Duncan exited his prime in 2007
He has no convo to be top 10
Duncan also struggled hugely in PNR in the playoffs.
A 10 year prime in which you win 4 titles, 3 Finals MVPs, 2 MVPs, and are All-NBA first team 9 times absolutely puts you in the convo for top 10.
A 10 year prime from 1997-2007 isn’t unusual especially since he was a 4-year college player. Bird, Russell and Magic both played 13 years total, Wilt 14, etc. Duncan also had many very good, but definitely not his prime, years. (2012-2015).
Ssssshhhhhh he’s the greatest player of his generation according to this subreddit you can’t speak facts!
I truly believe people don’t actually think this.
They certainly don’t hold him to the same standards as other elites of the elites.
For example: If Kobe/Lebron lost in the first round with his second option averaging fucking 29⁄7.. they would be utterly crucified.
Kobe would’ve cried happy tears if he had a second option as good as TP from 05-07… while Duncan had him AND Manu
I’m sure Duncan would be quite happy too if he played with prime Shaq in the early 2000’s.
Duncan is unarguably a top 7 player all time and yes, better than kobe
They do. Duncan isn’t as talked about because he wasnt the biggest big office star. But he was the best 2000s player
People in the real world don’t but unfortunately the kids on this subreddit do
bruh i had to jump in on a post they was talking about Duncan dominate the 00s like Mike dominate the 90s SMH these kids never live through the era
Blew it in the 2013 Finals too. Missed two easy layups and slapped the floor lmao.
Ginobili was our best player that year, not Duncan. Duncan averaged 13⁄9 and we all thought he was washed (Spurs fans included), they didn’t necessarily blame Duncan for it because we thought he was a year or two from retirement.
He kicked his ass in gear after this year and had another 4 quality seasons, but the reason people don’t hold it against him was because he was kinda ass that season
You Kobe-stans are incorrigible
I remember my mom letting me know he did and he sucked she hated the spurs with a passion because of desperate housewives and the gambling ref
grizzlies tanked their end of season to matchup with the spurs because duncan was getting abused by gasol and randolph, when ginobili (who was their best player although the media still focused on duncan) broke his arm in the last game of the regular seasons it was gg.
hats off to the grizzlies, like maybe they wouldn’t have gotten the upset if ginobili was healthy but tbh the advantage down low was too big so i could still see it happening. parker wasn’t at his best yet and duncan still needed to find the fountain of youth.
GRIT AND GRIND, BABY
Grit and Grind baby lets goooo
Grit and grind Grizzlies had a squad!
tin duncan had his fair share of embarrassments but god forbid reddit actually calls him out lol
He really was kinda teflon
Cuz he didn’t run his mouth.
2013 was crazy he missed two easy bunnies. Nobody talks about that
Why u doing this to me OP? Here I am having a nice morning and then this lol
One of the happiest basketball moments of my life.
The Goatmentator on the call
Would have been nice to add this Spurs team to the list of Dirk’s victims that year.
Agreed. But something about watching Spurs blow it to an 8th seed first round. Kinda cleansed the spirit of watching the 2007 Mavs blow it to the 8th seed in the first round. And then the Spurs won the 2007 title.
Cathartic.
2014 Mavs damn near beat the Spurs too before they went on that insane run for the rest of the playoffs. Hell of a series I remember.
Monta Ellis was going crazy. Vince Carter dug deep into his old man strength and was hitting game winners. That series holds a special place for me.
Grizzlies Zbo was way fun. Need more guys like Zbo in the NBA.
Eh if you watched the regular season that year, you’d favor the prime Grit and grind grizz over the Spurs. They were a bad matchup.
Memphis locked their shooters up. Even with a bad arm, Manu did his best but it’s only him and TP initiating the offense, Duncan doing less as he’s starting to show his age.
Not a lot of support from Antonio Mcdyess (36), infamous RJeff Spurs stint, Hill and Tiago were non factors.
They started their transition to their beautiful offense next year with the help of Kawhi shoring up the wing position for them.
Seeds didn’t matter in the west because it was so stacked and competitive
You cannot tell me in your heart of hearts that this 46-win grizzly team was in the same plane of existence talent-wise that the spurs were
For sure. This Grizzly team was awesome to watch and played lights out but to say that the Spurs weren’t overwhelming favorites as the damn 1 seed is a step too far. This is a terrible series for the Spurs.
My dude they beat them. The Grizzlies always kept games competitive.
Also, the West was a bloodbath. Spurs were a 2nd seed and lost first round to the Mavericks.
Not only that but the Grizzlies also took OKC to 7 the next round too. Obviously a wake up call for the Spurs but there’s a reason the Grit and Grind teams are so memorable 15 years later.
The Grizz legit tanked their last few games of the season to put themselves as the 8 seed against our 1. It’s not a good thing for us that a team was hunting us as the 1 seed, and it was doubly bad for us that Manu (our best player that season) broke his arm in Game 82. But these are all things that happened, objectively.
Plus Manu was injured during this series.
Hand, right? But he was still pretty good iirc lmao
That dude is a legend, cant hate
It was his arm. He had a fracture near the elbow, I think.
and the fact that he and duncan are one year apart but tim looked ancient here and ginobili looked like he was back in his prime
Pretty much this. Grizzlies made sure to lose at the end of their season to matchup against the Spurs.
Spurs fans were annoyed at Pop during this series becauseit was clearly obvious that Tiago needed more playing time over Mcdyess/Blair/Bonner in order to match the physicality of Gasol and Randolph.
That said, end of the day, that series was definitely a wake up call to the team.
The revisionist history is crazy
the grizz had marc gasol and zach randolf. duncan was getting bodied in the paint
That was peak time ZBo and Marc Gasol, Spurs had no answer to that duo
i used to hate this version of the spurs. dirtiest team in the leauge with horry and bowen and the flop godfather ginobili
i think its the most happy i have been other than celtics series.
than spurs changed their game and started playing great basketball without the dirty shit. now i like them.
Man this was tough. In thought because they were a #1 seed they would win, but memphis had a great team. They had no answer to the randolph/gasol front court and their role players were great. Manu tried so hard to will them to win the series parker played well, but Duncan wasnt his usual self against that front court. I think this was the beggining to that 2014 roster
I watched this live. I was in awe. Battier was torching Ginobili every posession
I won a lot of money on that series. Enough to pay two months of rent for a college kid lol.
Is that the GOATmenter speaking? Before all the rhymes
Memphis would have been a 3 seed in the East
My predominant memory of this series is of being part of the movement to #FreeTiago. Splitter was a rookie and did well in his minutes, but Pop stubbornly didn’t play rookies at the time even though Tiago wasn’t particularly young and had been playing professionally overseas.
The Grizzlies ate us up, with the Spurs’ best minutes coming with Duncan & Splitter sharing the floor. He upped Tiago’s minutes for the last couple of games, and saw some good results, but it was too little too late.
Overall a bad post season for Pop, especially if you count sitting his starters against the Lakers in the penultimate regular season game saying he was resting them heading into the playoffs. He then played them in the final game against Phoenix because suddenly rest wasn’t important, and the basketball gods broke Manu’s arm in retribution for cowardice. Manu being Manu, he still played against Memphis, of course.
Thank you for this.
People conveniently forget about 2007–2013 when debating Duncan vs. Kobe.
And Kobe fans conveniently paper over 2005-2007 and 2014-2016 when talking about Kobe’s legacy. They both had some bad years, but at least Duncan’s embarrassments happened in the postseason and not outright missing the playoffs in his prime.
As someone said as well, Duncan won a chip in 2007, made the WCF in 2008 (and lost to Kobe, 100% concede that), and made All-NBA 1st Team and the Finals in 2013. 2009-2011 were his true “down years”.
You’re including years after Kobe tore his Achilles at 34 to bolster your point.
Additionally, put Duncan on the 2006 or 2007 Lakers and they don’t make the playoffs because they wouldn’t be able to get the ball up the court.
His 2007 Finals stat line was a whopping 18/12/4 with 2 blocks, 1 steal, and 3 turnovers on 48% TS. Essentially, a slightly better series than a sick Joel Embiid in 2019 vs the Raptors.
Duncan making All-NBA 1st team in 2013 at center wouldn’t have gotten him more than a third team in any years outside of the weakest era for centers in league history.
The “swap player X with player Y” argument is dumb as hell when they play different positions, because the 2007 Spurs don’t win the Finals with Kobe either.
Even with similar positions, it ignores what those players’ strengths were. Swap Jokic for Duncan on the 2007 Spurs and I don’t know that we win those Finals, even though Jokic now is better than Duncan then. Their skill profiles are almost entirely different, and those teams were built around those skills.
I included Kobe’s post-Achilles years because they were the downturn of his career. Kobe’s 2014-16 and Duncan’s 2009-11 are each player’s worst three-year-stretches, so comparing them is fair. Duncan’s just weird in that he reversed his decline when most players don’t (2011 was his second-worst season behind only 2016).
The Spurs swept in 2007 because Duncan absorbed the attention of the Cavs’ #4 defense and the offense ran through Parker, who Cleveland had no answer for. Duncan dropped 27⁄14 on .596 TS% against the Suns in the WCSF, so you know how good he still was. The Finals gameplan needed him to defer, and he did.
I’ve said elsewhere in this thread that his 2013 1st Team came in the weakest era for centers ever, so I’m under no illusions there. I did grow up watching Duncan so I know that some of this comes with a measure of bias (as does any argument defending Kobe by Kobe fans, if we’re being real here), but I’ll push back on misrepresentations when I see them, with (hopefully) reasonable evidence where I can.
2007-2008 and 2013 were good years. Duncan’s down years were really 2009-2012.
09-11.
Duncan was the best player on a WCF team in 2012.
Led the Spurs in playoff PER, WS, VORP, BPM, rebounds, was 2nd in scoring and 3rd in assists.
What’s funny is the best impact metrics xRAPM and EPM have Duncan ahead of Kobe even during his worse 2011 season.
But the casual nephews will scream about how the rapist scored more points
look at greivis vasquez man
What a time to be alive 🥹
Why do this mannnnnn
cool monkey on a dog
Why are you showing this? Ugh. I also remember Manu’s miracle 3 except his foot was on the line.
Such a good series I say as a spurs fan that Grizzly team was no joke. After they dismantled us I thought they’d be able to get past OKC.
Is that a real monkey riding a dog?
no no no you can’t tell the truth about reddit’s golden boy!1
Duncan never lost in 2004 Olympics abd quit on the team that had to reach out to Kobe to redeem them from embarrassment
Reddit’s GOAT Tin Duncan with a chokejob
[removed]
That’s what’s gonna happen if you have 5 titles, 3 finals MVPs, and 2 MVPs.
Huh? LeBron has 4 titles and 4 MVP’s and gets ripped apart for series twice as good as what Duncan produced
Duncan is undeniably extremely protected.
LeBron James is the consensus 1st or 2nd best basketball player of all time, ripped apart feels like a bit of an exaggeration.
Do you not follow basketball discourse?
LeBron is top 2 minimum. He’s not getting ripped apart like you’re saying.
Yes, he has many haters because people sees him as a narcissist. If you a narcissist, no matter how good you are, people get mad and will try to nitpick just to put you down. But trust me, deep inside haters know bron’s really, really good.
Meanwhile, Duncan does not put himself in the GOAT debate… all while having all the accolades to back him up.
35 year TD lol, don’t think either of those players should get ripped on but u do you
Well thats because of the Cult° of MJ
Dirk was coming off an MVP year tho.
it’s funny cause i think duncan having pop is a double edged sword for him in certain playoff losses. pop led teams without crazy talent on paper to elite records only to be outmatched in certain series (01 wcf vs LA, 04 vs LA for example) where they had less talent despite having comparable or even better records than their opponent
just look at the 2011 spurs roster. no clue how that team won 61. i was annoyed the whole season about it
I notice Duncan always gets a pass whenever he loses or has a stain on his legacy. I rarely see people bring up him missing the easy layup in the Finals, the 04 Olympics, or this current topic. Whenever someone does bring any of this up, they make excuses for him such as his teammates underperformed or they were playing through an injury.
kobes career was over at 33 yet you still crying about a missed layup duncan had at 36.
don’t be mad that duncan took pay cuts to build title contenders while your boy was happy to cash checks and finish his career a loser.
Yet they have the same amount of rings. So what did all those pay cuts accomplish?
Probably because he had already proven himself in the league while Dirk had only ever lost in the playoffs up to that point. Also Duncan won another ring just 3 years later. There’s no reason to bring up a bad playoff loss when all you did before and after was win
Okay, clown. 🤡
That 12 ppg really hurts huh?
I don’t think a bad series midway between the 4th and 5th Championships hurts nearly as much as you would like it to.
Perturbed or something lil guy? 12 ppg is indefensible from your best player on a 1 seed lol
Indefensible? He won 5 titles, how’s that for a defense?
It’s quite an idiotic defense for this series and this year from Duncan. But as usual, Duncan fans bend over backwards and touch their toes to avoid criticizing him.
I mean he wasn’t our best player that year lol, he averaged 13⁄9 for the whole season while Manu was our best player, and everyone in San Antonio lowkey thought he’d be retiring in another year or two.
Credit to the man, he kicked his ass into gear, lost weight, and got back to All-NBA level for another couple of years before retiring 5 years later instead. But 2011 was the second worst year of his career, ahead of his last year in 2016
If Duncan was more rated, his bad moments like 04 semis and the 04 Olympics would be more criticised. But only nerds on here put him higher than guys like Magic, Shaq. So its not a big deal.
Duncan’s bad moments and lack of repeats have been taken into account for most. Its why people dont slot him top 3 or top 5.
tim was 34 years old and only shot 11.5 shots per game that series vs marc gasol and zbo
dirk on the other hand was 28 years old in his prime and had just won a mvp. dirk has always been a bucket getter and shot an abysmal 38% that series vs andris biedrins lol
pretty different situations
Calm down you MFFL
The guy with 5 rings in 6 tries? Best player on the best team for 15 years? Yeah really boggles the mind why people think he’s good.
12 points a game on 50%TS lmao
I like duncan but any other T15 player has a performance like that they’re getting crucified for life
The most protected superstar? He hardly gets the recognition he deserves for what he accomplished. This is a hilarious take.
But but I thought Tim Duncan is top 5??????? He’s such a goat is what this sub tells me , what happened ????? Thank god Leonard saved his legacy.
So fucking dumb. Our team was legit.
Go plant some trees kawhi.
Because of 1 game…?
Flairless clown take.
Manifesting this for the Spurs this season
Do we get to repeat it too?
Why not
Yo is losing in the finals not enough punishment for spurs fans? 🤣
Reddit renowned top 5 player of all time dropping Derrick Favors numbers in an elimination game and letting Zebo score 31
I ❤️ seeing Spurs fans suffer!
We alright fam ❤️
Seriously. Someone outside of San Antonio probably thinks this is owning the fanbase. Buuut… we won plenty and have 5 chips from the Duncan era. It’d have been nice to have a run that season, but I wasn’t alone in tipping my hat to Memphis for a great series.
They intentionally dropped from 7th to 8th bc they liked the matchup against the spurs better and they got it done. Great defensive basketball from both teams that series. I can appreciate it even if my guys came out on the losing end.
Damn what’d Spurs do to you? I thought the ‘07 finals was relatively drama free
You’re fucking irrelevant without Bron
Not true but thank you for the feedback!
Kind of though right? Like a little bit.
Nah they’re totally relevant historically too, mainly as MJ’s punching bag during the first chapter of his career
no sir!
Fucking spitting
The intro and the narrator takes me back