De’Aaron Fox won the inaugural Clutch Player of the Year award for good reason.
On Saturday night, he reminded everyone of that with a game-winning pull-up from the elbow that gave a shorthanded Spurs team a win on the road against the Grizzlies.
That wasn’t his only big play in the comeback, on the previous possession Fox got Zach Edey to foul him on a 3-point closeout. Fox finished with 20 points on the night, and Devin Vassell added 20 as well, although the Spurs’ leading scorer was rookie Stephon Castle off the bench with 24.
The Grizzlies were shorthanded without Ja Morant, but Jaren Jackson Jr. stepped up with 42 points. The Grizzlies have now gone 2-5 in their last seven and have slid back to fourth in the Western Conference. Memphis lost this game in the second quarter when it gave up 46 points to San Antonio, forcing the Grizzlies to play catch-up all night. Here is what Santi Aldama told Damichael Cole of the Memphis Commercial Appeal.
“Energy is not there,” forward Santi Aldama said.”…I can sit here and just say it’s there, but it’s not. It’s clearly not. We’re just letting teams punk us every single night, and then we make up for it and we just hope the coin flips our way. We can’t play that way. We’re not that team that needs a little bit of luck. We normally set the tone and we haven’t been doing that.”
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