Grizzlies clinch 7th straight playoff berth with win over Mavs

The Memphis Grizzlies are playoff bound for the seventh straight season, officially punching their ticket with a 99-90 win over the Dallas Mavericks on Friday night.

Memphis improved to 42-34, clinching a Western Conference postseason berth with the help of the Charlotte Hornets' win over the ninth-place Denver Nuggets. The Nuggets fell to 35-40, and the Grizzlies own the head-to-head tiebreaker. With the Oklahoma City Thunder also losing, Memphis moved to within a game-and-a-half of the 6-seed.

The Grizzlies have ridden the four-man core of Mike Conley, Marc Gasol, Zach Randolph, and Tony Allen to all seven of those playoff appearances. They didn't have Gasol in the lineup Friday because of a foot injury, but the other three all played prominent roles, with Conley dropping a game-high 28 points on just 15 shots, Randolph bruising his way to 22 off the bench, and Allen helping smother the Mavs on the perimeter.

The other pieces have shifted dramatically around those four over the years - including on the bench, where they're on their third coach since their run started in 2010-11 - but the Grizzlies have been grinding on. Theirs is the second-longest active playoff streak in the West.