QUARTER-BY-QUARTER ANALYSIS
First quarter: Charlotte’s Gerald Wallace and Lorenzen Wright of the Grizzlies both came out hot with each connecting on their first three field goal attempts, but it was Memphis that grabbed the early 15-8 lead after Shane Battier’s three-pointer with 6:22 remaining. The Bobcats then brought Keith Bogans off the bench and he was quick to provide instant offense. Bogans scored seven points in the next two-plus minutes as Charlotte pulled back to within one at 20-19. Memphis was quick to counter with a 6-1 run capped by Stromile Swift’s monster dunk to take a 26-20 lead. After Jason Kapono’s three-pointer, the Grizzlies led 26-23 at the end of one quarter. Pau Gasol led all scorers with eight points and added three assists.

Second quarter: The athletic Grizzlies bench took over early in the second quarter, scoring 10 points in a 14-4 run as Memphis grabbed a 40-27 advantage. James Posey had four points, including a dunk off a fast break, and Earl Watson and Dahntay Jones also attacked the basket as all 14 points in the run came in the paint. Shane Battier also began to establish his presence – scoring 10 points in the quarter, including a three-pointer with 1:54 remaining to give the Grizzlies their biggest lead of the half at 55-39. The Grizzlies ended up shooting 63.1 percent in the quarter and outscoring the Bobcats 32-21 to take a 58-44 lead at the break.

Third quarter: Jason Williams started the scoring in the third quarter with a three-pointer as the Grizzlies extended their lead to 17, but the Bobcats came roaring back on back-to-back baskets by Emeka Okafor and a three-pointer by Kareem Rush to cut the margin to 61-51. The teams traded baskets for the next seven minutes before the Grizzlies broke the game open for good with an 11-0 run to take an 84-64 lead. Jamal Sampson stopped the run with a layup with 19 seconds remaining, but the Bobcats still trailed by 18 after three. James Posey had eight points in the quarter for Memphis. Emeka Okafor had seven points and five rebounds for Charlotte.

Fourth quarter: The fourth quarter was more of the same as the Bobcats struggled with their shooting (36.8 percent) and turned the ball over three more times. Charlotte finished the game with 18 turnovers leading to 23 points for Memphis. Gasol led six Grizzlies in double-figures with 19 points. Posey was outstanding off the Memphis bench with 17 points and seven rebounds. Okafor recorded his 23rd double-double of the season with 17 points and 12 rebounds, including 14 points and 10 rebounds in the second half.

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GM & HEAD COACH BERNIE BICKERSTAFF SAYS...
(on the game) I’ll start out with two things and you can go from there. My opinion is it was a sad commentary for a basketball game on our part. We’ve got to get consistency in performance, skill-wise. We had 18 turnovers for 23 points. We average 14 turnovers a game. We’re one of the top teams in the league in forcing turnovers, ourselves and Washington.

(on Emeka Okafor guarding Pau Gasol) (Pau) Gasol made some great shots. He comes across the middle, throws one up, left-handed off the glass. Those aren’t our problems. Our problems are what we do in terms of stopping people. Early in the game, I think they were pushing the ball down on us getting the easy shots. We did not play the way we normally play and the reason is perplexing to me. I’ll go back to the first statement, it was a sad commentary for a basketball game on our part.

(on the factors in tonight’s game being effort or execution) It was everything, I thought tonight. We didn’t get much done. If you look early in the game at the loose balls, they were coming up with them. The long rebounds, they were coming up with them. There are key times in the basketball game when you’re trying to stay in a game -- they came up with the long rebounds and the loose balls to get a second attempt on it and they made the shots. If you look at this basketball team, the guys who are not notoriously known for making shots are making the open shots. That’s what happens in the NBA, if you stay in the NBA, you make open shots.

(on Memphis having only eight turnovers) That tells you what we did defensively. It’s about the effort defensively. We’re being challenged offensively, guys going to the hole, I mean we’re being challenged and we’re not responding defensively. Ultimately, that’s how you win basketball games. This is what we talked about earlier in the day when we were all talking in here, we play one game skill-wise and performance-wise and it seems that we’re satisfied. Then we come back tonight, it’s perplexing to me. But we have Atlanta tomorrow. Tomorrow is a gut check and we'll see what we're made of.

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INSIDE THE LOCKER ROOM

MELVIN ELY
(on the game) We didn’t come out to play. They did and they just jumped all over us. Everybody has games like this. We said in the huddle we can’t afford to take days off. We’re not good enough to do it. Everybody has to come play like we did in the Cleveland game.

PRIMOZ BREZEC
(on the game) At the beginning of the game, our energy was just not there. In this league, you have to play 82 games hard. You have to play hard every night. Today we were not able to do that.

(on guarding Pau Gasol) They were going to (Pau) Gasol early. He was posting up. We didn’t do a good job defensively. We have do a better helping Emeka (Okafor). We said in the locker room before the game that we were going to stay on him (Gasol) and we were going to trap him. We just didn’t do it. Then when a guy starts to feel good it’s hard to stop him.

KAREEM RUSH
(on the game) We never really got a good flow on the offensive end. We couldn’t knock down shots and they played well. They’re a great defensive team. They came down and shut down our turns and forced us to take tough shots. They got the lead and they held on to it.

(on the defensive effort) We weren’t playing very good defense. They were getting open shots and they were knocking them down. They were knocking down a lot of outside shots. We really wanted to play strong and play Gasol well and let the other guys touch it. But the thing is they were knocking down shots.

(on the long-term effects of the loss) It’s not a setback. That’s the thing about the NBA, you’ve got another game the next day. We can regroup and be ready for tomorrow. It’s only one game. Even though we didn’t play well we’d like to come out and have a better showing tomorrow.

BREVIN KNIGHT
(on the game) They are a good team. They’ve got an all-star in Pau (Gasol). The rest of the guys around him do what they do best. They shot the ball well tonight. They played an all-around good game and we didn’t. The score reflects that.

(on the difference in performance from Tuesday) I don’t what it was, especially coming off of playing a good game like we did against Cleveland. We can’t be on a roller coaster. We have to go out every night and compete hard. Our margin for error is very little. If we give another team any type of good feeling, we’re going to be in trouble.