Memphis Grizzlies show immaturity in blown lead at New York Knicks

The Memphis Grizzlies were mentally weak against the New York Knicks

This wasn’t a competition between which team had more experience in the league — both squads are among the youngest in the NBA. In fact, if you were to take out a couple of veteran players on the Knicks who don’t often play, they’d have a younger average age than the Grizzlies.

That said, the Grizzlies made it abundantly clear that they were the 2nd-youngest team in the NBA with this loss.

To put the severity of this loss into perspective, the Grizzlies were up by 12 points with 5:10 left on the clock in the 4th quarter. They were up by 8 points with just over 2 minutes left in the game. The Grizz didn’t have to do anything special, just hold onto a hard-earned lead that they had throughout the entire game.

Perhaps that was the toughest part of this loss — the fact that the Grizzlies outplayed the Knicks from start to finish. Here are some numbers to back that up.

Memphis Grizzlies:

• 47-94 FG (50%), 14-30 3PT FG (46.7%),
• 33 AST, 14 TO
• 64 Points in the paint

New York Knicks:

• 45-96 FG (46.9%), 14-32 3PT FG (43.8%)
• 24 AST, 14 TO
• 54 Points in the paint

Even near the end of the game when the Knicks were making a comeback, the Grizzlies just seemed to allow this to happen. The Knicks weren’t doing anything that couldn’t be stopped, the Grizzlies were just playing extremely poorly defensively.

Which leads me to my final point.