Hubie Brown may have lead the Memphis Grizzlies to 50 wins and their first ever trip to the Playoffs, but listen to GM Jerry West and you'll hear praise of things much greater than the surface items which earned Brown the Coach of the Year award.

"He hid a lot of our weaknesses all year long," West said. "This team does have warts."

Some of these warts may have been exposed during the team's first round sweep at the hands of the Spurs, and because of this don't expect West to stand still during the offseason.

"My job is to be objective," West said. "I don't care who (the player) is. My hope is to do what's best for the franchise."

Up three games to none in their first round playoff series against the Memphis Grizzlies, the San Antonio Spurs are looking to close out the series with a sweep.

Memphis has been a Cinderella team this season, winning a franchise best 50 games en route to their first ever Playoffs campaign, but after losing seven in a row and nine of their past ten they are all but done.

The Spurs, meanwhile, have not lost since March 23 and have the fact that no team has ever come back to win an NBA playoff series after losing the first three games on their side.  The Spurs are all but guaranteed a spot in the second round against the Lakers... should they be able to hold off the Houston Rockets of course.  Jerry Crowe of the L.A. Times reports that the Lakers hold a 3-1 advantage against San Antonio this season, but Spurs coach Greg Popovich was quick to point out this was misleading.

"We couldn't have beat your Budweiser team three times before Christmas," Popovich said.  The three losses came in the first five weeks of the season when the Spurs were trying to find their feet.

Memphis will look to lean on the experience of guard Bonzi Wells, who last season found his Portland Trail Blazers down 0-3 to the Dallas Mavericks before rallying back to force a Game 7.

"It's like I'm experiencing deja vu," Wells said.

New Orleans' P.J. Brown was awarded with the NBA's Sportsmanship Award before his Hornets took on the Miami Heat in a must win game.

Brown, a finalist in each of the past three seasons after being a Central Division winner, beat out the Los Angeles Clippers' Elton Brand (1,139), the Memphis Grizzlies' Shane Battier (985) and the New Jersey Nets' Kerry Kittles (880) to take the award.  Brown finished with 1,220 of a possible 1,320 points.

The trophy, named after Joe Dumars, honors a player who exemplified the ideals of sportsmanship on the court, ethical behavior and fair play.

Hubie Brown, who led the Grizzlies to a 50-win regular season and their first playoff appearance, will receive the NBA's Coach of the Year award, The Commercial Appeal has learned.

Brown, 70, beat out Utah coach Jerry Sloan, according to two league sources with knowledge of the voting results. Brown will be presented with the award Wednesday - a day before the Grizzlies play host to the San Antonio Spurs in Game 3 of their playoff series at The Pyramid.

At 50-32, the Grizzlies became the ninth team in history to record 50 wins the following season after experiencing 50 losses. Memphis ended last season with a 28-54 mark.

Brown received Coach of the Month honors for February and March after the Grizzlies manufactured records of 10-3 and 13-2. Their 13 wins in March were a franchise record.

Before the Grizzlies took their first steps toward adding the best chapters of a nine-year history, point guard Jason Williams gathered the starters and formed a circle.

Music blared. The SBC Center rocked. The defending NBA champion San Antonio Spurs were stomping onto the court. None of that rendered Williams mute.

"He was telling us to have fun," Griz forward Pau Gasol said. "He said, 'Let's do this together.' That was the gist of it."

They didn't have fun for most a 98-74 loss to the Spurs in Game 1 of their Western Conference first-round series. And the Griz, thanks mostly to the Spurs' defense and partly to postseason jitters, were so disjointed offensively that you'd need to remember Dec. 15, 2003, to find a relevant reference for what transpired.

That's the last time the Griz scored so few points in a game. Then, San Antonio held Memphis to 67 points.

"They did to us what they've done in the last 14 games," Griz coach Hubie Brown said of the Spurs, who own a 14-game home win streak dating back to the regular season.

"We never got in a groove," Williams said. "We never did anything we were supposed to do, and we made it easier for them. It's like we got down on ourselves. We weren't having fun."

Stromile Swift is the last man standing from the Grizzlies days in Vancouver.

When the Grizzlies opened their first season in Memphis in 2001-02, the 6-9 Swift was one of six holdovers who made the move from north of the border.

And now Swift, the No. 2 overall pick in the 2000 draft, carries the banner into the Grizzlies' first playoff appearance for all those players who suffered through lousy season after lousy season during the franchise's first six years of existence in Vancouver.

"I've seen the worst," Swift said. "So to come from Vancouver, from that losing situation to a winning team that has made the playoffs, I'm happy."

Gasol and the Grizzlies begin their first playoff series tonight against the San Antonio Spurs in the SBC Center. The franchise has made it this far largely because of Gasol's gifts, and how he responds to the pressure of playoff basketball will speak volumes about himself and the Grizzlies' chances.

"We want to be respected for competing," Gasol said. "That's what I'm going to do. But I'm not going to be the hero here. We have to do it together. In this series, everybody is going to count. Everybody is going to have to do their job."

Nobody, though, has had to carry more bricks than Gasol in the Grizzlies' renovation. That doesn't figure to change all of sudden.

Gasol will get the most touches. He will play with expectations that are higher.

He's the person the Spurs will be most mindful of.

"He's the guy that makes everything go for them. He's going to get a lot of (defensive) attention," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich told reporters. "We just hope he doesn't go crazy."

Hubie Brown doesn't care that the Griz lost their last four regular-season games. He's already put behind him a lopsided, season-ending loss to Minnesota on Wednesday when the Griz trailed by as many as 29 points in The Pyramid.

And Brown won't lose sleep about the San Antonio Spurs being labeled a 9-point favorite in Game 1 of their first-round playoff series.

None of the above will have an impact on their best-of-seven series when the ball is tossed up Saturday in the SBC Center.

"I know we're not going to be favored in the series," Brown said. "But we know that we can push them. We know we can get into a series where they really have to pay attention to us. We play well in San Antonio. And what it's going to come down to is: Can they continue this incredible run that they're on? . . . It should be a good series."

Tracy McGrady, Allen Iverson, Vince Carter and LeBron James will be watching the NBA playoffs on TV when the first round begins Saturday. Yet if you were the Bulls, you'd figure your problems would be solved if you had one of those players. So just how do you build a successful team?

Among the Bulls' many rebuilding plans, the centerpiece always was to get a star, whether it be through free agency--like their pursuits of McGrady, Grant Hill and Tim Duncan in 2000--or through the draft with Tyson Chandler and Eddy Curry.

 

Now look for the Bulls to pursue what is becoming the new, popular rebuilding option in the NBA, practiced best these days in Milwaukee and Memphis.

"When you take over a team," one veteran general manager said, "all you hear is you have to go out and get a star and you'll be OK. But there's a lot of merit in building a team first and when it's the right team, see if you can add a star. Just having a superstar doesn't guarantee you success.

"Look at Toronto, Philadelphia and Orlando. If you don't have a team, you're not going anywhere. Maybe you can only go so far with that kind of team, but at least you can be successful until you figure out how to get that guy."

An informal poll of 24 reporters who cover the league regularly - 13 from the Western Conference and 11 from the East - showed that Utah's Jerry Sloan had an edge over Hubie Brown of Memphis for the coaching honor.

Sloan received 14 first-place votes, Brown got eight, one was split, and there was one abstention. The point totals, on a 3-2-1 basis, showed Sloan with a 60 to 50 lead over Brown.

Brown on Sloan: "The guy's done a miraculous job. He's made the playoffs what, 21 straight years? If he makes the playoffs with this team, that will be one of the major accomplishments of his career. It would be great if he won it. He's a man's man and he's a professional. He coaches with his heart."

Sloan on Brown: "He's done a great job with that team. He's one of the best coaches in basketball, and he's a great teacher. He does things the right way, and this year all their players know exactly what their roles are on that team. I'm not surprised at all that they've been so successful."

The poll showed that there were two runaway races - for most valuable player (Kevin Garnett) and rookie of the year (Lebron James).