The Memphis Grizzlies punched their ticket to the NBA Summer League semifinals Thursday, dismantling the Atlanta Hawks 96-64 at the Thomas & Mack Center behind 24 points and seven rebounds from Cameron Boozer.
The game was over before it started. Memphis opened on a 32-2 run in the first quarter, shooting 13-for-17 from the field while the Hawks missed 12 of their 13 attempts. That kind of quarter doesn’t get undone; the Grizzlies pushed the lead as high as 36 and coasted from there.
Cedric Coward backed Boozer with 23 points, and the two anchored a night of control that showed up all over the box score. Memphis outrebounded Atlanta 45-34, outassisted the Hawks 20-15, and shot 50 percent from the field while holding Atlanta to 40 percent overall and 19.4 percent from three. Isaiah Wong led the Hawks with 20 points in a game that was never close.
For a front office in the middle of a post-Morant reset, the summer roster doubles as an audition for the pieces it intends to keep. Boozer, the prize of the 2026 draft class, has looked every bit the featured big Memphis needs, and Coward’s scoring strengthens the second-year wing’s case for real rotation minutes in October. The rebounding and passing margins matter more than the final score here: this group defends the glass and shares the ball, and that complementary play tends to carry over from July.
The reward is a divisional semifinal. Memphis faces the Houston Rockets on Saturday, July 18 (5:30 p.m. CT, Prime Video), with the winner advancing to Sunday’s title game against either the Lakers or the Warriors.
For fantasy purposes, Boozer is the takeaway. A 24-and-7 line on efficient shooting reinforces what dynasty managers already suspected: he is in line for a heavy-usage, featured-scorer role as a rookie, and his stock only climbs the more Memphis leans on him. Coward is a name to file for deep redraft and dynasty leagues — a 23-point night in a semifinal-clinching win is the kind of summer that earns a wing rotation minutes, and rotation minutes on a rebuilding team mean counting-stat opportunity.
