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Marc Gasol isn’t getting ahead of himself, is ‘a big Quentin Tarantino fan,’ apparently

By Dan Devine | Ball Don't Lie – 2 hours 54 minutes ago

'I'm Marc Gasol. I solve problems.' (BDL Illustration)

Marc Gasol didn't have a monster Game 5 against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday, finishing making just five of his 13 field-goal attempts and grabbing a non-eye-popping seven rebounds in 41 minutes.

But the burly center was there when the Memphis Grizzlies needed him most, with six of his 10 points — including a huge 19-footer with 27 seconds left — and two of his three blocks coming in the fourth quarter.

And run back the tape on Kevin Durant's closing-seconds miss — check out which 7-foot-1 Spaniard is lurking just beyond the restricted area, ready to pounce on a drive and influencing Durant into pulling up.
Gasol's Game 5 numbers might not have been stunning, but his performance throughout the Western Conference semifinals was everything Memphis could have asked for and more — 19.4 points, 8.4 rebounds, 2.8 blocks, 2.4 assists and 1.6 steals in 41.9 minutes per game, shooting 48.6 percent from the field and 81.8 percent from the foul line, and anchoring a withering defense that held Durant and the Russell Westbrook-less Thunder to a paltry 94.3 points per 100 possessions, a mark that would've ranked below the Washington Wizards' league-worst offense during the regular season. He was a star, full stop, on both ends of the floor, and is as big a reason as any why the Grizzlies ousted the West's top seed in five games to advance to the Western Conference finals for the first time in franchise history.

But he also knows just how good his Grizzlies are, that they were supposed to beat the wounded Thunder, and that Memphis' job isn't done yet. His postgame choice of pop-culture touchstone to illustrate that knowledge was pretty amazing, according to ESPN.com's Ramona Shelburne:

This was a very big night for the Grizzlies. It wasn't the last night, though.

"It's not time to do that yet," Gasol said firmly. "To me it's not time to congratulate everybody."

I'm a big Quentin Tarantino fan. There's this line [in 'Pulp Fiction'] from Wolf — which I can't say in front of you guys — when they [finish] cleaning the car up. He says, 'Let's not do that yet.'

"We're still in the process. We're still not there yet."

In the event that you have somehow made it through the last 19 years without watching or hearing about the specific scene from "Pulp Fiction" that Gasol's referencing, and you are the kind of insane person who gets upset about spoilers from movies that literally came out more than one decade ago — yes, such people exist, and my pet name for them is My Wife With Regard To "The Usual Suspects," Which Is Kind Of Infuriating Because We Literally Own It — I won't spell the reference out here. Also, I would probably get fired if I did, because as Marc notes, the line spoken by Harvey Keitel's Winston Wolfe is really, really NSFW. You can watch the scene in question here, if you are a consenting adult with headphones and/or there's nobody who'd get mad around.

Grit, grind, monster dunks, thrown shirts, pit bull rescues, huskies at practice and now a Wolf at the door. The Grizzlies will never stop working to make you love them, world.