These Damn Memphis Grizzlies Suffer Another Exquisitely Painful Loss

Things are getting mighty sad in Memphis. Franchise cornerstones Mike Conley and Marc Gasol are on the trading block. Their once-promising start to the season has spiraled nightmarishly into full-blown, total hell. Monday night they blew a 25-point lead at home and suffered through an agonizing last-minute en route to their 20th loss in 24 games. They need a win, but they need nothing so much as they need to be put out of their misery, once and for all. That might’ve finally happened Wednesday night, at the merciful hands of Karl-Anthony Towns.

The Grizzlies mostly trailed the Timberwolves, and by as many as 17 points, early in the first half. To their credit, they fought their way back and took a couple slim leads, none greater than two points. They fought, like proud-ass veterans! They fought all the way to the end, and they had another two-point lead with just about three minutes left on the clock in overtime and the score at 97–95. You can tell it was an especially low scoring game, so it will not surprise you to learn that only two buckets were scored from that point on. Sadly, neither of them were scored by the Grizzlies. Devastatingly, the last of them went like this:

That is just a goddamn cruel and brutal way to lose, especially for a team that cannot get a win, and that lost so painfully in their previous game. Last season the Grizzlies endured a similar swoon, but at least then they were pretty overtly positioning themselves for a draft lottery windfall. This season was supposed to be different, but instead they carry the stink of the grave, which is precisely where this version of the Grizzlies finally and definitively belongs.