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Gay leads Grizzlies to overtime win over Clippers

Jan 27, 2008 - 5:40 AM By Jason Smith PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

MEMPHIS, Tennessee (Ticker) -- The Memphis Grizzlies finally found a way to win in overtime this season.

Rudy Gay scored a career-high 34 points and grabbed a season-high 12 rebounds and Mike Miller added 27 points to lift the Grizzlies to a 125-120 overtime victory over the Los Angeles Clippers on Saturday at FedEx Forum.

"It wasn't the prettiest of games, but we battled courageously and very hard," first-year Memphis coach Marc Iavaroni said. "We finally got some stops at the end when it seemed as if (Sam) Cassell was going to score every time."

It was Memphis' first overtime win in four tries this season and came after the Grizzlies had fallen behind, 117-114, in the extra period.

But reserve forward Hakim Warrick, who scored all 17 of Memphis' bench points, nailed a 14-footer and point guard Kyle Lowry followed with an offensive putback off Warrick's miss to put Memphis ahead, 118-117, with 40 seconds to play.

"The shot clock ran down and Hakim had to put up a long, tough shot, and then I just went for it and got it," said Lowry, who finished with a career-high 21 points.

Rookie Juan Carlos Navarro's two free throws made it 120-117 before Cassell missed a potential game-tying 3-pointer with less than 20 seconds remaining in overtime.

Miller and Lowry combined to make four free throws over the final 13.9 seconds to drop Los Angeles to 2-11 this season against Western Conference teams on the road.

"It came down to the wire. There were a couple of missed shots, missed free throws, rebounds," Clippers coach Mike Dunleavy said. "One bounce one way or the other, and it's a different ballgame for us."

The Clippers had taken their first lead of the game in overtime, as Cassell's 12-footer gave Los Angeles a 110-108 advantage.

The Grizzlies had led by two and had possession with less than 40 seconds left in regulation, but Navarro's pass was intercepted by Cuttino Mobley, who quickly got the ball over to Corey Maggette for a game-tying layup.

Maggette finished with a season-high 35 points before fouling out in overtime and Cassell added 25 and Tim Thomas 23 for the Clippers, who were playing their first overtime game this season.

"They hit a big play with the (offensive) rebound that Kyle Lowry got," Maggette said. "It gave (Memphis) momentum. At one point, I thought we had them. But it changed everything around and they got some shots. We didn't execute the shots and they did. They played well."

Tied at 73-73 with just more than five minutes left in the third, Los Angeles had a chance to take its first lead of the game. But Miller stole Cassell's pass and converted back-to-back layups on consecutive trips down the floor to push Memphis' lead to 77-73.

The Grizzlies would go on to outscore the Clippers, 13-7, over the next 4:27 to match their biggest lead at 90-80 before Maggette's layup with three-tenths of a second remaining in the third made it an eight-point game entering the fourth.

The Grizzlies matched their biggest lead of the first half at 44-34 when reserve Warrick split a pair of free throws at the 9:13 mark of the second quarter.

But Maggette, Thomas and Cassell combined to score 25 points in the quarter to pull the Clippers within one basket at 61-59 at the half.

Memphis began the first quarter 9-of-12 from the field, including 4-of-6 from 3-point range, and led by as many as 10 points in the opening period.

"Rudy Gay started off hot," Maggette said. "In the beginning of the game, I think he scored 12 points so fast, in less than eight minutes."

Gay scored 12 points in the first quarter on 5-of-9 shooting, helping the Grizzlies to a 36-28 lead after one.

"Things were just going from the start," Gay said. "It's like the opposite of what happened last night (in a 111-92 loss at New Orleans). We came out shooting and making our shots, and that's what we didn't do last night. So it was a good win for us."