Memphis Grizzlies: Looking back at each past matchup vs. Spurs

The Memphis Grizzlies won’t be thrilled about their positioning in the play-in tournament. As a team that was shooting for a 6-seed for most of the season, they blundered near the end, sending themselves down to the 9th seed.

This means that they’ll have to win two games in the play-in tournament — one against the San Antonio Spurs and another against the winner of a game between the Los Angeles Lakers and Golden State Warriors.

And even though it’s easy to immediately look ahead to game two, this should be taken one at a time. The Grizzlies are a better team than the Spurs, but they won’t be guaranteed anything in the first game of the play-in tournament.

To get a better perspective for how this series could go, we’ll look back at each game between these two teams, starting with the first game of the 2020-21 season.

Game 1, Memphis Grizzlies @ San Antonio Spurs: 131-119 (L)

This was the first game in a season where Taylor Jenkins would have to coach a team without its second-best player in Jaren Jackson Jr. in the lineup. Offensively, Memphis played pretty well, scoring 119 points.

Most impressively, Ja Morant dropped 44 points, showing that he could step up in JJJ’s absence. Unfortunately, the rest of the team wouldn’t follow suit and the Grizzlies would take a loss against a lackluster Spurs squad.

It wasn’t an ideal game, but there were positive takeaways. The defense was bound to regress, so it was good to see the offense keep up, at least to some extent. The defensive issues seen in this game are still lingering slightly, but shouldn’t be a worry in the play-in contest.

I’ll have more on this as we check out the other two games against the Spurs.