Friday’s game between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Memphis Grizzlies was billed as a superstar matchup between Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Ja Morant — two of the best young guards in the league.
Gilgeous-Alexander entered the night averaging 32.3 points on 54.6 percent shooting and receiving MVP praise from national pundits. Meanwhile, Morant continued to play like his usual dominant self, averaging 29.3 points and 6.8 assists entering the game.
Instead, both turned in mundane performances as Gilgeous-Alexander scored a season-low in points and Morant exited the game in the fourth quarter with an ankle injury.
The Non-Morant Grizzlies stepped up big time in this game and helped secure their 10th win of the season.
Starters Jaren Jackson Jr. finished with 25 points and 12 rebounds and John Konchar scored 19 points. Off the bench, Santi Aldama scored 15 points and Tyus Jones scored 13 points.
In the end, the Grizzlies defeated the Thunder, 121-110.
The Thunder were able to keep it within reach the entire game but were not able to make a serious run at taking their first lead of the game. The Grizzlies were able to answer back any potential Thunder run and put out the fire.
So what was the difference in this game? The charity stripe.
The Thunder shot 9-of-11 (81.8 percent) while the Grizzlies shot 29-of-40 (72.5 percent) from the free-throw line. A 29-attempt difference and a 20-point difference in an 11-point loss.
The culprit for the wide difference in free throws? The Thunder committed 28 fouls to the Grizzlies’ 13 fouls.
Allowing 30 fast-break points also certainly didn’t help either — especially when the Thunder only scored six of their own fast-break points.
Outside of those two areas, the Thunder were able to keep up with the Grizzlies in the rest of the offensive categories, but a free-throw and fast-break disparity that large requires almost a perfect performance in other areas of the game and the Thunder simply did not do that.
Let’s take a look at Thunder player grades.