MEMPHIS, Tenn. – Errrbody stunned now.

Well, that would be errrbody except the team that now has the No. 1-seeded Golden State Warriors looking like a complete shell of themselves, with the most lethal, statistically dominant squad in the regular season facing real adversity and some level of doubt for the first time.

The Memphis Grizzlies never doubted for a moment they’d be in this position. They’re holding a 2-1 lead in the best-of-7 Western Conference semifinals after Saturday’s 99-89 victory against the Warriors. That places them two wins away from executing the biggest upset of the postseason. There may be a new wave of supporters soon hopping aboard, but the Grizzlies cling to the same mantra printed on those rally towels placed in every sold-out seat Saturday at FedEx Forum: Memphis vs Errrbody.

The slogan is equal parts slang and Southern accent, blended into a bold level of confidence in this town. Even coach Dave Joerger, a Minnesota native, added some drawl to his voice to end his postgame press conference amid laughter when leaned into the microphone and said, “Errrbody enjoy your night.”

Despite seizing control and dictating the pace with two defensively suffocating performances after losing the series opener a week ago, the Grizzlies know two things for certain at this stage.

First, it’s starting to get a bit more crowded with cameras and media invading their space. And secondly, this series is far from over. While the numbers indicate teams that pull ahead 2-1 in a seven-game series go on to advance 81.7 percent of the time, these Grizzlies players aren’t obsessed with such figures.

If they were, they might have been discouraged by respected and well-researched projections that they were 80 percent likely to lose this series. If they acknowledged and accepted the plethora of advanced metrics and analytics that set the table for this matchup, they’d have no appetite after digesting Steph Curry’s real plus-minus or Golden State’s historic, double-figure point differential this season. Instead, Mike Conley stood in front of his locker Saturday and pointed to a different variable driving his team.

“We don’t know what the numbers say,” Conley said. “We know the effort. We knew that if we played with the same effort we did in Game 2, we’d be OK and play well again [Saturday].”

That effort again started with Memphis’ Bash Brothers dictating terms instead of Golden State’s Splash Brothers. After combining for 35 points and 13 rebounds during Tuesday’s 97-90 win in Game 2, Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph bullied the Warriors' smaller frontline for 43 points and 23 rebounds Saturday.

The tenacious defense that limited Golden State to just 39 first-half points in Game 2 was applied in the same fashion to limit the Warriors to that identical point total at halftime in Game 3. And the blueprint that had Conley and defensive stalwart Tony Allen harassing Curry and Klay Thompson into a 9-for-30 clip from 3-point range through the first two games was also the script on Saturday, when the sharpshooting duo missed 11 of their 16 attempts from beyond the arc.

The Warriors enter Game 4 on Monday seeking answers. The Grizzlies are in search of consistency.

“Why would we change anything?” Allen said of Memphis’ pound-and-hound approach to disrupting Golden State’s rhythm. “I don’t think we should change nothing. We need to play how we’ve been playing, the way that got us this notoriety -- the reason why all these cameras are in my face now. We hang our hats on the defensive end, and we pound it in to our big fellas. That’s just how we play.”

The formula is far from pretty. But it’s how the Grizzlies have established their reputation through three consecutive 50-win seasons and five straight playoff appearances. Yet the Grizzlies somehow entered this series as the team that had far more to prove. Allen never understood that logic.

It was Memphis that came in with an experienced core that’s been intact for years, that advanced to the conference finals two seasons ago, that’s knocked off No. 1 seeds twice in the past four years. Golden State arrived with a franchise-record 67 wins, the league MVP in Curry and a shiny and extensive spreadsheet filled with impressive metrics and rankings.

But those are regular-season metrics and rankings. The Warriors are no longer bouncing from city to city, blowing out inferior opponents with a free-wheeling offense that drops 3-pointers at will against defenses that have no clue how to close the floodgates.

Now, the Warriors are locked in with a team that admires and respects what they do but has absolutely no fear of them. The Grizzlies are like the brawler with the tough chin who’d willingly sacrifice a few shots to the head in order to methodically deliver gradually debilitating body blows. The hope is that the strategy slows down the faster fighter until those legs are completely wiped out in the later rounds.

Golden State feasted on sparring partners throughout the season, but this stage of the postseason is a grueling prizefight.

“This is kind of our moment of truth,” Warriors first-year coach Steve Kerr said. “You have to learn in the postseason. Everything that we talked about as a staff in the regular season, all the details -- it doesn’t register because you’re winning games and teams don’t make you pay. All those little mistakes, especially against a veteran team like Memphis, you’re going to pay if you make them.”

Case in point: Memphis scored 22 points off 17 Golden State turnovers. The Warriors countered with only seven points off 15 turnovers by the Grizzlies. This may well be a numbers game, but the Grizzlies are turning this into a series predicated on relentless effort, execution and experience.

“We’ve been to the Western Conference finals before, are you aware of that?” Allen asked, rhetorically and defiantly. “We’re trying to dig in and fight and claw and take it one game at a time. We’ve all been together five or six years. We understand what stage we’re at right now.”

The magnitude of that stage wasn’t lost on Joerger earlier Saturday, when he spoke after shootaround about the coaching pressure he feels to help deliver a breakthrough for a fan base that believes the Grizzlies are on course for something special. He spoke of a small-market town that has knowledgeable and passionate basketball fans who totally rally around only the Grizzlies and the University of Memphis.

“As a coach you can feel the pressure, because they live and die on every good thing and bad thing at times, and we can overdo it,” Joerger said. “But that’s the beauty of it, too. That game the other night [Game 2] gave the city a lot of hope that we can pull this thing off.”

If the Game 2 victory at Golden State gave the town hope, then Saturday’s home win only increased expectations. The Grizzlies haven’t typically handled expectations well this season.

But they’re no longer embracing the underdog role or the underrated narratives.

What they’ve done so far this series has captured errrbody’s attention.