Grizzlies bury Nets 129-110 and our +4.5 pick misses by 14.5

Memphis 129, Brooklyn 110. That's a 19-point margin, and our Nets +4.5 call missed cleanly. The Grizzlies didn't need a late surge to bury this one. They controlled it.

The lean was small, and we said so. Memphis's season numbers came from just 11 games and were inflated by a 6-0 road run. The Grizzlies were only 2-4 at home, allowing 116.8 a night, and their recent five-game margin was a modest +1.4. We also liked Brooklyn arriving on three days of rest while Memphis played on a back-to-back with Zach Edey and Quinten Post out.

Tonight the home-court skepticism looked misplaced. Memphis scored 129, and a 4.5-point cushion disappeared long before the final buzzer. Whether the rest edge meant little, the injury absences mattered less than we figured, or the Nets simply had a bad night, the result says the same thing: we were wrong on this one.

Small leans are still leans, and this one got run over. Next time we'll weight the home-split problem more heavily and stop assuming a back-to-back automatically means a tired team. Onward.