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Shane Battier had heard about days like the one that he had on Sunday. Now that he’s had time to come down from it all, he told his story on the radio. Battier hit what turned out to be the game-winning shot in the Memphis Grizzlies’ road upset over the San Antonio Spurs in Game 1 of their first-round playoff series. As he was celebrating in the locker room, some teammates told him he better get in a car and drive back to his home in Houston as his second child was being born. He didn’t believe them until he turned on his phone, then high-tailed it back to his wife and newborn baby daughter. Obviously it was quite the day for Battier, who has now quickly turned his attention back to the court. The Grizzlies lost a close Game 2, but now return home hoping to spring the series upset. Shane Battier joined The Dan Patrick Show to discuss the entire story of hitting the game-winner while his daughter was being born, if the baby was planned around the playoffs, if he should be on the Mount Rushmore of flopping to draw a charge, what happened to the Grizzlies in Game 2 and the difficulty in defending Manu Ginobili.
Did the game-winning shot come before or after the baby was born?:
“That was when my wife was on the operating table in the OR. At about the 7-minute mark, my wife stands up to go to the restroom, watching the game, fourth quarter, close game. She had a condition where we knew an emergency C-section might be in the cards. Mind you, we’re six weeks out from the due date, so we have an operation scheduled for three weeks from Sunday so we thought we had a couple weeks to make this work. She stands up and she begins to hemorrhage. She calls a neighbor, neighbor drives her to the hospital.
When and how he found out about everything:
“All this is going on while it’s crunch time against the Spurs. I hit the 3-pointer to put us up one and we end up winning by 3. We’re in the locker room after the game and there’s a lot of shenanigans that go on in the locker room and usually there’s a cold Budweiser waiting for me somewhere after a game like that. Rudy Gay comes up to me and says, ‘You’ve got to get out of here, you’re having a kid.’ I thought, ‘OK, that’s funny, a little low blow, a little too soon, let me enjoy my moment in the sun.’ But all of the sudden another buddy came up to me. I flipped on my phone and had about 10 messages and about four minutes later I’m on the road back to Houston.”
Did he and his wife plan the baby with the playoffs in mind?:
“No, it just kind of happened that way. We were aiming for early June baby, the due date was May 27. That way, with me being done, I could help out a little more the last couple months. … You always hear stories about guys missing a playoff game or rushing home from a playoff game and you never think it’s going to be you. … I was that guy.”
Does he belong on the Mount Rushmore of drawing fake offensive fouls?:
“I always said the ability to draw a charge was [essential] to my career. People didn’t know if I was going to jump out of the way, if I was going to dive under them, if I was going to block their shot. I was second all-time at Duke in blocked shots, so I wasn’t a one-trick pony there. But the dual-threat of the charge and the blocked shot, that was my wheelhouse.”
On the Game 2 loss at San Antonio:
“The Spurs are the Spurs and we weren’t expecting anything less than a fiercer effort on their part. Frankly, we didn’t play very good. We still had a two-point deficit with 20 seconds to go, that’s pretty good in San Antonio. We knew we had a shot but we feel good about coming home to Memphis.”
Where does Manu Ginobili rank amongst the toughest players to guard:
“Oh yeah, easily [top 10]. He’s in a five, six, seven category. It’s the same cast of characters. You’ve got Kobe, LeBron, Durant, Ginobili, I put Joe Johnson in that category, Paul Pierce, the usual suspects.”
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