READ MORE: Understanding the playoff rotations of NBA Championship contenders And they have a long history of continued struggle against the Spurs since that 2011 series. The smart money would lie with betting on the Spurs to walk through them in the first round and then we can spend more time figuring out if this is “The Death of Grit-N-Grind.” The four players who remain on the roster from the 2011 squad - Marc Gasol, Mike Conley, Zach Randolph and Tony Allen - represent the heart and soul of the team, but only Conley is under 30. There is question about whether their run of playoff appearances, seven years strong including a Western Conference Finals run in 2013, will last beyond this season. The Grizzlies are the old guard, the team that’s been “figured out” by the rest of the league. Now, in 2017, the Grizzlies are facing the Spurs again in the first round, and the narrative has completely flipped.
They were new, invigorating, and the league’s premier chaos team, only the fourth team ever to beat a No.
When the Memphis Grizzlies upset the San Antonio Spurs in the first round of the 2011 NBA playoffs, they were a young upstart team, a concoction of interesting young pieces mixed with a few veteran cast-offs, who played with an energy and tenacity the pre-Kawhi-era Spurs couldn’t handle. Seven years doesn’t sound like a long time, but it’s an eternity in the NBA. It’s been seven years since this happened. By Trevor Magnotti 5 years ago Follow Tweet