Tony Parker puts Spurs on his back for NBA Finals trip

Sam Amick | USA TODAY Sports

MEMPHIS — Tony Parker was done talking about his transcendent night, back from the media podium where nothing he said could perfectly capture what he had just done.

The San Antonio Spurs point guard was happy, of course, ecstatic that the Memphis Grizzlies were behind them and the NBA Finals awaited them for the first time in six years and the fourth time since he joined Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili as part of this legendary Big Three in 2001. So he walked with a permanent grin past the meaningless trophy in the hallway next to the locker room, that silver ball that Manu Ginobili wanted no part of holding because he said he'd "wait for the next one."

Then Parker, the Frenchman who seems so much older than his 31 years with all the memories he's made in this league, put this latest moment in perspective in the most unexpected of ways.

"Tracy McGrady is going to the NBA Finals," he said with so much joy to reporters as he passed the former All-Star whose playoff failings — an 0-8 record in the first round of the playoffs before watching this run as a Spurs reserve — are so well known.

Good players come and go in this league, but it's the precious few who have the ability to determine their own playoff fate like Parker did in the 93-86 Game 4 win. McGrady wasn't the only one with every reason to be in awe of Parker afterward. Even George Gervin, the Spurs great who was on hand, never had nights like this during his ABA and NBA career in which he never went past the second round of the playoffs.

It wasn't just Parker's 37 points on 15-for-21 shooting — gaudy numbers if this were a preseason game in October. It was the timing of the jumpers, the runners, the floaters and the back-cuts, the way in which he spent the night demoralizing a Memphis crowd that had seen its team lose in the FedEx Forum just once since Feb. 5 before the Game 3 loss Saturday. It was the toughness, the floor-cleaning slides after hard fouls from a frustrated Grizzlies bunch and the eye poke from big man Marc Gasol that sent him to the locker room midway through the fourth quarter before he came back to finish this job.

"Greatness," McGrady said when asked to describe Parker's outing. "There's no other way to put it. It was just greatness. Just his will to win. You could see it later on in that game, turning it up, extremely focused, knocking down big shots. It was just his will, man."

In what is a phenomenal point guard era, Parker has been overlooked in recent years while youngsters like the Oklahoma City Thunder's Russell Westbrook, Chicago Bulls' Derrick Rose and Boston Celtics' Rajon Rondo dominated that debate. But the individual performances such as this one combined with the collective achievement (three titles and a chance at a fourth in 12 seasons) are more than enough to ensure his legacy as the most accomplished of his time.

The injury component of these playoffs will never be forgotten, what with Westbrook going down for good in the first game of the first round, Rose never returning from the knee ligament tear that robbed him of a full season and Rondo tearing his own anterior cruciate ligament in early February. But Parker was still standing and still sensational, still hungry to avenge the Conference Finals of a year ago when a 2-0 lead became a six-game series win for the Thunder in what was the most painful of failures.

Greatness, indeed.

"Outstanding," Ginobili said of Parker. "Outstanding, what he did today. Our worst moments, key moments, he made the great plays. He made a huge three when they were making a run. He was unbelievable. He played the way he had to play for us to have a chance today."

Be it the Heat or the Pacers in the Finals, they'll have more than a chance so long as Parker's leading the way.

"He's amazing, and he's evolved so much over the last couple of years," Duncan said. "To get back to this point with him at the helm, I'm just going to do everything I can to get these four games in and try to win four more for both of us. Obviously he's carrying the load. He said that we were going to get back here, that he was going to get me back here, and it's a lot of fun to be back here."