On one hand, the Grizzlies had spectacular games from three key pieces: Ja Morant, Brandon Clarke and Jonas Valanciunas. But it didn’t add up to a win, as the Grizzlies gave up a huge second-half lead — and the game — to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday night in a 126-122 loss.
As they have shown consistently, the Grizzlies controlled much of the game – three point bombs helped them take a 68-59 lead into the half, and midway through the third quarter, the lead had ballooned to an 89-65 lead.
But OKC went on a third-quarter run to seize momentum. Particularly damaging were the last 35 seconds of the quarter, when sloppy play by the Grizzlies led to the Thunder scoring five points. OKC’s Dennis Schroeder had a lot to do with that, leading all scorers with 31 points off the bench.
The Grizzlies were shaken after that, and OKC rode confidence and momentum to the win, their second come from behind win in a row.
Clarke continued his emergence, leading all Grizzlies with 27 points off the bench, to go with seven rebounds. Morant had 22 points and seven assists, while Valanciunas racked up 24 points and nine boards. Jaren Jackson Jr. was a nonfactor with just nine points in 16 minutes of play.
