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Not since the old days does Tim Duncan remember having the ball run through him so many times.
But forget the old days. He was just relieved to get the San Antonio Spurs back to how they looked last week.
Making good on a guarantee that the West’s second-winningest team would start playing like it again, Duncan had 28 points and 12 rebounds and the Spurs shook off their funk to top the surging Memphis Grizzlies 107-97 on Thursday night.
Duncan matched his season-high a night after the Kobe Bryant-less Los Angeles Lakers humiliated the Spurs on their home court. Lakers center Andrew Bynum made Duncan look particularly outplayed while becoming just the second NBA player in the last dozen years to corral 30 rebounds in a game…
Manu Ginobili added 20 points and Tony Parker scored 13. The Spurs had won 11 in a row before losing their last two—the Big Three didn’t play at all the first one against Utah—and narrowly escaped their first three-game slide this season.
Rudy Gay led Memphis with 19 points. The Grizzlies had their four-game winning streak halted after their rally from a late 14-point deficit fizzled in the final minutes, and fell 1 1/2 games behind the Los Angeles Clippers for the No. 4 playoff seed.
It was only the third loss in 12 games for the Grizzlies since the return of Zach Randolph…
O.J. Mayo scored 16 points and Marreese Speights added 15 for the Grizzlies.
— Reported by Paul J. Weber of the Associated Press
