Grizz Put Up Fight, Come Up Short to Thunder. Jazz Up Next, Tonight.

Colin Rafferty –

Your Memphis Grizzlies lost the first game of a back-to-back, last night to the Oklahoma City Thunder 103-119 on NBC’s streaming platform Peacock.

Just by looking at the box score you would point to the second quarter as the one that broke the Grizzlies back, 36-26, but it was more than that. Injuries, turnovers, and mostly Iisalo’s unwavering commitment  to his platoon style of substitutions is what sunk them last night.

Alas, the Grizz drop 2 straight after being right on the cusp of getting back to .500 and it sucks.

The Grizzlies played with some heart and fight though, it wasn’t a blow out and with only 11 out there to play, one of which was signed on Sunday, they tried.

Cedric Coward and KCP led the Grizzlies in scoring with 16. Jock Landale helped with 11 pts, 10 reb, and 3 assists. Jaren was a nonfactor and Cam Spencer put up 14 pts, 5 reb, and 8 assist.

The Grizzlies held their own in rebounding, assists and had an alright shooting night, but were dominated in points in the paint (56-28) and had ten more turnovers to the Thunders 13, which led to 31 points.

To beat the best team, you need to be equal or dominate in areas that they excel at, the Grizzlies just didn’t have the manpower.

Shoutout Olivier Maxine-Propser, he is a ball of energy and fun to watch, even if he is not the most polished guy out there. Memphians can watch and cheer for a guy like that, we always have.

Now, SGA, you menace, you know you get away with murder on the court every night, so why are you now implementing traveling into game? Don’t you have enough already?

I digress; I cannot stand to watch the Thunder. I don’t like any of their players and I don’t like the way they can just shove people, travel, get shooting fouls not looking at the basket, and anything else you want to say goes there way does.

It is frustrating to no end.

The game was close with a little under 3 minutes left when Iisalo switched out the line up and the Thunder went on a run. I get it, you have your style of coaching, but buddy this is the NBA you have to get a better understanding of how the game flow goes.

It’s getting to the point where we don’t have any healthy body to run out there, keep the guys in there that are putting together runs, I don’t care about how long they have been on the court, I don’t care if they have 2 bad possessions, keep them in the game.

You only hurt yourself by putting in guys that aren’t in the game flow at that minute, and additionally they aren’t coming in to light it up, so what is the point.

Some good news for Grizz fans though, before the game Ja Morant was seen on the floor before pre-game shoot around. He was putting up some shots, hopefully this a sign that he will be back soon.

Now to the second game of the back-to-back, the Utah Jazz.

Utah comes into this game on a losing streak as well, they have dropped the last 3 games to the Lakers, Magic, and Nuggets.

They are a weird team as they are one of the top 10 teams in team offense but are the last in team defense and one of the worst in point differential.

The Grizzlies have already shown that they can lose to this team, as they did 9 days ago inside FedEx Forum. The Keyonte George game and Ja Morant’s return to the lineup, which lasted all of, almost two games.

The resolve in facing this team is that they lost last night and shoot decent. This is a pivotal game though as the Jazz are 10th in the west right behind the Grizzlies, it would be nice to keep a little bit of a cushion in between us and them.

Defense will need to show up tonight and limit the number of turnovers, that is a way to keep yourself in the game.

It will not be easy, but they can get it done.

Tip-off is at 8 PM CST, the game is in Utah, and the Grizzlies will be back on the FanDuel Sports Network.

Santi Claus I just want a win before Christmas; can you do that for me?