Grizzlies 105, Knicks 95: "One of those nights."

It really was just one of those nights, like Tiger Driver said in the thread. The Knicks have been undermanned and undersized all season, but it took until tonight's game against the very big, very great Grizzlies to look it. New York shot well from inside the arc and continued to take care of the ball, but they just got manhandled on the glass (at least early on) and in the paint. With Carmelo Anthony mismatched on Marc Gasol on Tyson Chandler struggling against Zach Randolph, the Knicks gave up heaps of extra shot opportunities and free throws they simply couldn't afford. They're capable of making up for all that with outside shooting, but that was very much not the case in this one (5-19).

And on the "one of those nights" front, the Knicks just couldn't seem to come up with loose balls, helpful bounces, and calls they felt they deserved. To their credit, they never let the game get totally out of hand, but to their discredit, they let it get pretty close to out of hand by totally blowing their tops in the third quarter. After Melo sat with a fourth foul and subsequent technical, New York became impetuous and grouchy and their ball movement completely went to shit. Not the ideal response to a tightly called game, but hopefully something to learn from.

Before I say goodbye for the night: He wasn't in much a position to succeed (something Mike Woodson hopefully noticed), and the griping about fouls was poor, but I loved Melo's effort on both ends in this one. I was also delighted with Raymond Felton's fourth quarter pick-and-roll aggression and pleasantly surprised with Rasheed Wallace's second quarter explosion, even if he kinda lost his mind thereafter. J.R. Smith made some truly awful plays, but again, just seemed to fall victim to one of those nights.

So, the Knicks are 6-1. No longer undefeated. Losing to what might very well be the best team in the NBA 24 hours removed from an exhausting road win on a night of uncharacteristically rampant foul trouble and terrible three-point shooting isn't the end of the world. Just got to take some lessons from this one into Sunday's game against the Pacers and get back to work on a new streak.

Maybe we'll talk about this more in the morning. Have a good night, friends.

Update: Totally forgot that this was "Friday Night Knicks" and they played the Robert Randolph song and everything. Doomed from the start.