Wizards Use Black Magic on Grizzlies… Again.

Colin Rafferty –

Your Memphis Grizzlies lost, again, to the Washington Wizards last night 116-112.

This is just ridiculous; there should be no reason that within a week that the Grizzlies lose TWICE to the now 7-23 Wizards.

The Wizards were led by Alex Sarr’s 20 points and 9 rebound night. CJ McCollum added 16 points, most notably a few big shots at the end of the game.

The Wizards had a full team effort aside from those two, with 8 guys with double digit points; Bilal Coulibaly, Tre Johnson, and former Grizzlies player Marvin Bagley III all had 14 points, with Bub Carrington adding 12 pts. Kris Middleton and Justin Champagnie posted 10 pts each.

I blame you, Tuomas Iisalo, what and the hell were you thinking having GG Jackson out there in the final minutes over Cedric Coward. That is inexcusable, I don’t care how bad he looked throughout the game, you don’t do that.

Just if you were keeping score GG finished with 5 points, 1 rebound, 1 assist, 1 turnover and 3 personal fouls.

I’m not trying to knock the young kid, but that was just plain stupid to have him out there; against CJ McCollum of all people, he hates the Grizzlies and kills them every time.

You’re banged up, I get it, but that was just stupid coaching. Beyond stupid.

This is what the coaching is, they are probably a day late and a dollar short. Zach Kleiman really stuck his neck out for a guy that cannot beat bad teams.

The Grizzlies have now dropped two opportunities to get back to .500 to one of the worst teams in the NBA, in less than a week.

This time the Grizzlies had Dillon Brooks in attendance to see his former team, getting in a day earlier than the rest of the Suns, who play the Wizards tonight.

There was a litany of things that were bad last night, rebounding was at the top of the list. I will never understand how Jaren doesn’t get a double-double every night, but that’s who he is so I will live with him having 8 rebounds last night.

There is just no excuse for the amount of second and third chance opportunities, hell some fourth chance ones mixed in there, for the Wizards to get.

Multiple times down the floor the Grizzlies would look to have set up a nice run and inevitably look like chickens with their heads cut off, not getting a rebound and allowing the Wizards to stay alive or build momentum.

The Grizzlies were outrebounded 54-43 allowing 15 offensive rebounds.

Now, free-throws, how and the hell do you miss free-throws. I tell you how, it’s just a lack of concentration. These guys can hit 1,000 of those things in a row, they just need to not lose focus.

It is all about a rythym; I have seen Santi, Jaylen and Jaren hit their free-throws; they missed some big ones down the stretch last night.

The game looked weird all night, I don’t know what happened in between the Bucks game and last night, but something did and it spilled over to that game.

After having a great start to the season, the bench was a nonfactor last night. Cam didn’t hit a three all night, KCP had 4 points on 11 minutes, Prosper played 8 minutes and had 3 points.

The guys that dominated the rotations were GG Jackson and Christian Koloko.

Koloko added 4 points, 7 rebounds, and 1 assist in 25 minutes.

Jaren Jackson Jr. led the way for the Grizzlies with 31 points, 8 rebounds, 4 blocks and 1 assist. He was followed by Ja Morant’s 21 pts and 7 assist night.

Jaren looked like he was about to dominate the whole game after putting up 19 in the first half and he did do well after, but how he was being utilized down the stretch was frustrating.

Same with Ja, I understand he is coming off an injury, and you want to slowly ramp him back up, but these really long stretches and then on and off, is not getting it done.

Ja started the night with an almost alley-oop dunk but was thrown just a bit high, but he was able to put in for a lay-up. There was also a high-flying dunk that he deployed, and it looked like the Grizz were going to have to fight to win this game, and it was completely well within their grasp.

Iisalo needs to call timeouts when it’s getting late, there is no reason to have Ja stand at the scorer’s bench for more than a minute, with less than 5 minutes to go in the game; especially when you look like you’re about to lose to the Wizards.

It was a tough night for the young boys from Washington St. as they both came up with 11 points, 6-7 rebounds, and 3 assists. Jaylen Wells (7) had one more assist than Cedric Coward (6). Coward’s shot wasn’t falling but he still impacts the game in a defensive way.

Jaylen had an off night as well, he just never seemed to get synched up right and had a few weird turnovers, that were uncharacteristic of him.

It was just a bad night for Grizz fans.

The Grizzlies having 24 points in a fourth quarter is just not a way to win, giving up 32 while doing is a terrible way to lose.

Despite having fewer turnovers than the Wizards, the timing of the turnovers were a key element. The Grizzlies had some very untimely turnovers by trying to force the issue.

I do not like cross court passes, I do not like them when they work, I do not like them when they don’t work, I do not like cross court passes.

Just get through the end of the year with a win against the 76er’s and hopefully, and I mean with the biggest hope in the world, they can get over .500 and get some guys back from injury so that 2026 feels different than how 2025 ended.

The Grizz will be back in action on Tuesday for a home game against the Philadelphia 76er’s on NBC, tune up the round ball rock.

Tuesday’s home game is a giveaway night, and the first 3,000 fans will get a ‘Superhero’ Ja Morant and Jaren Jackson Jr. lunchbox, so get your tickets now.