MEMPHIS, Tenn. —As it turned out, Karl-Anthony Towns' improbable, banked-in 39-foot three-pointer at the buzzer in Memphis on Monday night only delayed the inexcusable.
That shot, temporarily silencing the crowd at FedExForum, only forced the Memphis Grizzlies to need a 5-minute overtime to pull off a comeback victory in a game they trailed by 14 with 5:23 left in regulation.
Just when it looked like the Wolves were about to put some recent bad history rest.
Another collapse. This time 125-118.
Brandon Clarke scored four of his season-high 20 points in an OT session the Grizzlies dominated.
The Wolves lost their fifth-straight game, this one in Memphis. And this one really hurt. An amazing finish to the third quarter and a strong start to the fourth had the Wolves up 16 points with 7:31 left and up 14 with 5:23 left.
And they lost.
With Ja Morant heating up and the Wolves going cold, the Grizzlies out-scored Minnesota 23-9 until Town's shot.
It was a crushing blow for a Wolves team that, once again, found the ball sticking and the half-court offense struggling as the Morant-led Grizzlies led the charge back.
His drive for a dunk with 56.3 seconds left tied the game at 108.
At the other end Karl-Anthony Towns traveled. Then, with 31.5 seconds left Morant hit a three-pointer.
D'Angelo Russell, playing after missing two games with an ankle injury, hit two free throws with 24 seconds left to pull the Wolves within a point. Putting on a full-court press, the Wolves forced an 8-second violation with 16 seconds left.
Taking the in-bounds, Russell drove. His shot was blocked by Jaren Jackson, Jr., but the officials called it a goaltend. But, upon review, the call was overturned.Morant hit two free throws with 2.1 seconds left.
Moments later, with time winding down, Towns hit his three-pointer forcing overtime.
Morant finished with 33 points. De'Anthony Melton had 19. Russell scored 30, and Anthony Edwards had 27. Towns had 25.
The overtime was tied at 117 when Russell made two free throws. But Memphis finished the game on an 8-1 run.
With Russell pushing the pace and the ball moving quickly, with every one of the Wolves starters scoring, the Wolves once again started strong, building a 12-point lead before the game was five minutes old when Edwards drained a three-pointer with 7:12 left in the first quarter.
It was still at 12 moments later when Edwards drove for a pretty score.
For most of the rest of the quarter it was all Grizzlies.
Led by Morant, who had 11 points, five assists and four rebounds in the quarter, the Grizzlies out-scored the Wolves 27-15 over the final 6-plus minutes of the quarter, forging a 34-34 tie heading into the second. Russell led the Wolves with 11 points of his own.
That included a 19-5 run over about 4 minutes after Edwards drive, one that ended with a Morant fast-break jam that gave the Grizzlies a two-point lead.
Much of the second quarter played like a mirror image of the first.
This time it was Memphis which started strong. With John Konchar scoring six points, the Grizzlies opened the quarter on a 11-2 run to take a nine point lead on Kyle Anderson's three-pointer with 8:05 left in the half.
Then, the Wolves: Towns scored five points in a 12-2 run that put them up 48-47 on Josh Okogie's basket with 4:48 left in the half. But with the Wolves going 2-for-7 down the stretch of the half the Grizzlies were able to build a 58-54 lead by halftime.
When Morant's shot with 7:59 left in the third quarter pushed that lead to nine, it looked like the Grizzlies were about to take over the game.
Not quite. Over the next nearly 8 minutes, with Russell scoring 13 points, the Wolves ended the quarter on a 30-10 run, with Towns' flying, nearly-out-of-control put-back of a missed Naz Reid laup at the quarter buzzer putting the Wolves up 92-81. The Wolves scored the final 13 points of the quarter.
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