**MEMPHIS** — The Memphis Grizzlies entered Monday night with a perfect 6–0 record and absolutely no experience losing basketball games this season. When defeat finally became unavoidable, they decided to make it last an additional five minutes.
Trailing New Orleans by nine late in regulation, Ty Jerome scored nine consecutive points in the final 1:43, single-handedly forcing overtime and ensuring Memphis would have five more minutes to experience its first disappointment of the season.
For a brief moment, the Grizzlies appeared to believe they had discovered a loophole allowing undefeated teams to simply refuse to lose.
Unfortunately, overtime still counts.
Zion Williamson scored nine of his 25 points in the extra period, while Jeremiah Fears calmly sank two free throws with 7.3 seconds remaining, ending Memphis' perfect season with the administrative efficiency of someone closing a spreadsheet.
Jerome, who finished with 40 points, missed a contested jumper at the buzzer, officially exhausting all available opportunities to prevent the inevitable.
Having already tried regulation and overtime, Memphis turned to its final remaining option: arguing at midcourt.
Players from both teams exchanged words after the final buzzer and had to be separated, apparently unwilling to accept that the basketball portion of the evening had concluded.
The 135–134 loss dropped Memphis to 6–1, though the team can take comfort in knowing it fought hard enough to make its first defeat approximately 12% longer than necessary.
The Grizzlies have now discovered that losing in overtime feels exactly like losing in regulation.
It just comes with five additional minutes of evidence.
