SAN ANTONIO -- It’s happened many times in NBA playoff history. A seemingly overmatched team gets blown out one game and then turns around and wins the very next contest. Tales of grit and resilience ensue.
There are a few blowout victims from this season’s set of Game 1s with a chance to join that tradition of bouncing back. None of them faces a steeper challenge than the Memphis Grizzlies. While the X's and O's of a Memphis turnaround are concerning, the Grizzlies can at least approach Game 2 in San Antonio with one basic, time-honored playoff lesson: One game has little to do with the next.
"You've got to move forward," guard Lance Stephenson said. "You've got to learn from your mistakes. That's what the playoffs is about -- learn from what you did and see how you can make it better."
For the veterans on the Memphis roster, this is old news. The blowout-is-just-one-loss theme was prevalent in their postgame comments after the first game at AT&T Center, when the Grizzlies saw a two-point first-half deficit turn into a 32-point rout that was the worst postseason loss for the franchise. But league history tells us those postgame words of consolation weren't empty.
One example: Tied for the worst loss in playoff history is the 1956 St. Louis Hawks, who were hammered by the Lakers that year to the tune of 58 points. The Hawks won the next game to take the series. Another: The 1973 Warriors lost by 56 to the Lakers. Next game? Yep, the Warriors won. There are other examples, but you get the point. Viewed through this prism, Memphis 32-point margin of defeat Sunday is small potatoes.
"We've been blown out before, been beat by 50 this year," coach Dave Joerger said. "It's been worse than it was the other night."
NBA fans saw yet another, and very stark, example of the bounce-back phenomenon Monday night, when the Dallas Mavericks recovered from a 38-point Game 1 drubbing to knock off Oklahoma City in Game 2. At least some of the Grizzlies noticed.
"[That game is] definitely motivation," guard Tony Allen said. "I'm sure we all watched that game last night. I'm pretty sure that's what [Dallas] planned to do going in, so we've just got to be ready to do that ourselves."
So there is some solace to be found in what could be a highly discouraging situation for a team that has battled injury-related adversity for months. In fact, they can take solace in their own playoff history.
Back in 2011, Memphis lost 99-72 in Game 5 at Oklahoma City, putting the Grizzlies one game from elimination. Memphis recovered to win Game 6 to even the series behind Zach Randolph's 30 points. The circumstances were different in that series, given that those Grizzlies were mostly healthy and their bounce-back win came at home.
Nevertheless, the lesson remains: Momentum, at least in the context of a playoff series, is a fickle beast. Therein lies the solace.
Of course, solace is one thing, but strategy is another, especially when it’s combined with the sizable shortfalls in healthy talent, not to mention top-to-bottom playoff experience, facing the Grizzlies.
"[Dallas' win] doesn't help us at all," said Vince Carter, who led Memphis with 16 points in Game 1. "It gives us that rah-rah motivation, but other than that we have to go out there and do it."
Top priority: Finding ways a Memphis team lacking weapons can unlock San Antonio’s largely unsolvable defense. Is it even possible?
Memphis has just two healthy rotation players who used at least 20 percent of the Grizzlies’ possessions while on the floor during the regular season. This metric -- usage rate -- is a keen indicator of a player’s ability to create offense. Twenty percent is the league average, and Memphis has just two players who reach that tepid benchmark: Stephenson and Randolph.
In some instances that might be enough, but not against San Antonio. Not when Randolph can be neutralized by Tim Duncan, possibly the league’s best interior defender, and Stephenson can be erased by Kawhi Leonard, who just won the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year award for the second straight season.
"When you play them, you have to make the game easy for each other," Carter said. "Playing one-on-one is not a smart thing to do."
When Memphis was competitive on Sunday, it rode a nice stretch of shooting by Stephenson, who scored nine points during the second quarter. Leonard was on the floor for all nine of those points but later so thoroughly throttled Stephenson during a ball-denial sequence that a Vine of Stephenson’s frustrated reaction became a trending social media clip on Monday.
So if Memphis is to make any headway, complementary players are going to have to expand their roles, as Carter did on Sunday. Matt Barnes was an offensive focal point late in the season for Memphis but scored just two points on 1-for-7 shooting on Sunday.
One possibility is for Memphis to play uncharacteristically small, at least for stretches. Since the All-Star break, which is more or less when this version of the Grizzlies came together, its most effective lineup has been a small one, featuring Stephenson, Tony Allen, Briante Weber (who is no longer around, but you can swap in Xavier Munford), Barnes and JaMychal Green.
Memphis didn’t have many configurations that worked Sunday, but one that did was small, athletic and mostly young. That group, with Allen, Carter, Munford, Stephenson and Jarell Martin, combined to outscore the Spurs 13-11 and shot 6-for-6 over four minutes. It's a teeny tiny sample to be sure, but given the circumstances, Joerger has to try something, right?
When asked about small lineups at shootaround, Stephenson said, "I think we're going to stick with what we've been doing."
Maybe that's all the Grizzlies can do after one short day of practice and film study. And neither Marc Gasol nor Mike Conley are walking through that door -- they’re still hobbling through it and will again watch from the sidelines. But coming off the worst playoff loss in franchise history, at the very least the Grizzlies can take comfort in the knowledge that in the NBA playoffs, one game has nothing to do with the next.
"Our whole thing was to try to come in and get one, and that's still the plan," Allen said.
