Biggest rivals fondly remember "monster" Tim Duncan during legendary Big 3 era

Marc Gasol, Zach Randolph, Mike Conley, Rudy Gay, and Tony Allen were at the core of one of the most memorable iterations of the Memphis Grizzlies. The Grit-n-Grind era was fun to watch because it was a callback to an older era of physicality, defense, and persistence. That squad would fight teams to the finish, and they gave San Antonio one of the organization's most embarrassing playoff losses.

Over a decade later, Gasol and Allen can be seen chopping it up about those days. Allen asked Gasol to remember what it was like to go up against The Big Fundamental, Tim Duncan, and his answer was nothing but gracious.

Spurs/Grizzlies rivalry stems from that era

San Antonio and Memphis have been in the same division for a very long time, but there was no rivalry before this group. The Grizzlies, after coming to Memphis from Vancouver in 2001, were just never important enough to care about. They spent most of their time dwelling at the bottom of the standings until all of a sudden, they were in our faces, ready to grind out a playoff series.

That series is where my disdain for the Grizzlies stems from. They were a fine team, and I respected their players, but the Spurs, after struggling to get back to the promised land following the 2007 championship win, were the number one seed in the Western Conference. Manu Ginobili has just played one of the best seasons of his career, but got injured before the postseason began.

When he returned in the second game of the series, he wasn't 100%, and the Grizzlies, in their first playoff appearance since 2004, defeated San Antonio in six games as the eighth seed. Don't get me wrong, Manu still stepped up and delivered some awesome performances, like his 33-point night in game five of the series, but the vibes were off by then because the Grizzlies won the first game of the series on the road.

They're physicality and determination seemed to throw the Spurs off, and it led to a horrible defeat that I still haven't forgiven them for, and I probably won't. Not because I'm seriously still mad about it (though I was for a while), but because I believe that rivalries are fun and holding onto them adds a layer to the stories told during basketball season.

After that loss to the Grizzlies, the Spurs beat up on them for a long time. It felt as if the entire organization felt as I did and took it out on Memphis for the next 7 years, sweeping them in the regular season three times over that span and never losing the season series to them. San Antonio also played them three times in the postseason since that series and beat them all three times, sweeping them twice.

Those were the days. Now, the Ja Morant era has taken hold, and with the Spurs rebuilding, they've been on the losing end of this rivalry. That will be over soon, now that Victor Wembanyama has a running mate in De'Aaron Fox, and San Antonio can get back to dominating this matchup.

Morant and crew will also have to pay for the sins of those who came before them because continuing tradition is the right thing to do.