Career-High Scoring
Ed Memphis: The irony in life comes in many ways. One way, in particular, is the same coach Marc’s frustration partially costed his job, is the same one who coached Marc to his career high night on this epic evening of January 27th, 2017.
Another realm of irony from this evening is that the same guy Marc scored his career high on, is the same guy he was eventually traded for last week in Jonas Valanciunas.
The 3rd stroke of irony from this game is that another one of the victims from Marc’s greatest scoring assault Kyle Lowry is now a teammate of Marc on the same team he dug deepest in his bag for in the Toronto Raptors.
Gasol made a big play when pumped faked and put the ball on the floor from the top left corner of the three-point line to the rim all with his left hand and finished while being fouled by Norman Powell. Now the two are teammates playing on a contending team as they both what would be the first NBA Finals appearance for both.
What are the odds that the team who suffered at the hands of the game Marc solidified his 3rd and most recent All-Star appearance in, would be the team now employing him? They hope he is missing piece to the most important season in the history of their well-decorated franchise as they compete for a championship.
Life comes at you fast, faster than Marc’s three-point shot nailed center in the eyeballs of New Memphis Grizzlies center Valanciunas at the 8:40 mark of the first quarter of the said game.
This was the moment I knew we were witnessing one of the greatest centers possibly ever in rare form. It was the example of a coach’s dream for a center.
Whether it was behind the back dribbles at the left elbow with a fade-away finish at the 2:09 mark of the 2nd quarter or faking passes to Zach Randolph out of the lower left post only to use his excellent footwork to go behind the back of the defender Jonas for the difficult post finish. Marc added a page to his legacy that evening and set the bar very high for the next man up at center.
So ironically again, with February being black history month we celebrate 42 being the number of Major League Baseball’s first black player Jackie Robinson. However, 42 is the pinnacle of Big Spain walking in Memphis, on Toronto, oh the irony.