{"id":518715,"date":"2026-01-05T19:50:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T19:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/518715\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T19:50:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T19:50:14","slug":"three-factors-that-led-memphis-grizzlies-to-another-loss-to-lakers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/518715\/","title":{"rendered":"Three factors that led Memphis Grizzlies to another loss to Lakers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The hits kept coming for the Memphis Grizzlies.<\/a><\/p>\n

One hour before tipoff against the Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> on Jan. 4 at crypto.com Arena, Ja Morant was ruled out with a right calf contusion. Before the first half ended, the Grizzlies lost Cedric Coward to a left ankle injury<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Just like that, they were down two starters on the road against one of the top Western Conference teams.<\/p>\n

Coward’s strong first-half play had helped the Grizzlies build an 11-point halftime lead, but they struggled to hold on, and ended up dropping their fourth straight game 120-114.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Lakers (22-11) swept the season series 3-0, including a 128-121 win over Memphis on Jan. 2.<\/p>\n

The Grizzlies (15-20) held double-digit leads in two of their three losses to the Lakers.<\/p>\n

Here’s what happened on Jan. 4.<\/p>\n

Battle of the fourth quarter\u00a0<\/p>\n

Another Grizzlies-Lakers matchup came down to the fourth quarter, where the Lakers rank sixth in the league in fourth-quarter net rating<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Grizzlies entered the fourth with a four-point lead. From that moment, however, the talent of the Lakers’ star duo of LeBron James and Luka Doncic took over.<\/p>\n

James scored 11 points in the quarter and Doncic added 10. Doncic led all scorers with 36 points, and James had 26. They also combined for 18 assists.<\/p>\n

Grizzlies star Jaren Jackson Jr. scored two of his 14 points in the fourth. Jaylen Wells did score 15 of his 23 points in the quarter, but most of it came when the game was essentially decided.<\/p>\n

Tested wing depth<\/p>\n

Through all of the Grizzlies\u2019 injuries this season, they have been able to maintain solid depth on the wing for the most part. But that depth was tested against the Lakers, and could be even more so going forward.<\/p>\n

Coward\u2019s absence led to GG Jackson starting the second half. But Jackson had four fouls in the first half, so he had to play through that. Wells had three fouls in the first half and picked up his fourth in the third quarter.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Grizzlies are already without John Konchar and Vince Williams Jr. because of injuries, so the status of Coward will be important to monitor.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jake LaRavia strikes again\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Grizzlies traded forward Jake LaRavia to the Sacramento Kings<\/a> 11 months ago. Although he has said that he has no extra motivation when facing the Grizzlies \u2014 who drafted him No. 19 overall in 2022 \u2014 he certainly plays like he does.<\/p>\n

LaRavia, who signed with the Lakers<\/a> as a free agent in June, had 21 points and nine rebounds on Jan. 2. Two days later, he had 26 points on 9-for-16 shooting, including four made 3-pointers, plus five rebounds and four assists.<\/p>\n

LaRavia has scored 20 or more points four times this season \u2014 and two of those came against the Grizzlies.<\/p>\n

Damichael Cole is the Memphis Grizzlies<\/a> beat writer for The Commercial Appeal. Contact Damichael at damichael.cole@commercialappeal.com.<\/a> Follow Damichael on X, formerly known as Twitter, @DamichaelC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The hits kept coming for the Memphis Grizzlies. One hour before tipoff against the Los Angeles Lakers on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":518716,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3795],"tags":[2126,299,7,2127,46735,1265,294,2125,625,20094,4077,517,624,496,106,300,20095,516,185,266,298,150,293,177,4070,6,67,66,83,55,2128,264,283,3725],"class_list":["post-518715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-memphis-grizzlies","tag-ai","tag-angeles","tag-basketball","tag-enabled","tag-gg","tag-gg-jackson","tag-grizzlies","tag-highlights","tag-jackson","tag-jake","tag-jake-laravia","tag-james","tag-jaren","tag-jaren-jackson-jr","tag-jr","tag-lakers","tag-laravia","tag-lebron","tag-lebron-james","tag-listicle","tag-los","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-memphis","tag-memphis-grizzlies","tag-memphisgrizzlies","tag-nba","tag-news","tag-sports","tag-sports-news","tag-story","tag-story-highlights-ai-enabled","tag-ttp","tag-ttp-listicle","tag-twitter"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115844233849916373","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}