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Spurs 'Hurt' After Epic Collapse vs. Grizzlies

The Memphis Grizzlies overcame a 29-point deficit to beat the San Antonio Spurs Friday night, leaving the home team hurt after the loss.

The San Antonio Spurs are still processing Friday night's loss against the Memphis Grizzlies, where the team led by 29 points in the middle of the third quarter.

The Spurs played well to get to that point, but had the 10th-largest collapse in NBA history and largest one this season.

"We've been competitive all year. We shouldn't have lost that game," Zach Collins said. "We were up 30. We shouldn't have lost. We kept taking bad shots and that put them in transition and we were playing on our heels for a lot of that run they made. We didn't execute as we did in the first half."

The Spurs executed flawlessly in the first half, playing one of their best stretches of basketball as a team this season, but no lead is safe in the NBA, even a double-digit lead with two minutes to go.

"We just got to learn how to close out a game," Devin Vassell said. "We were up 11 with two minutes left. Several communication things and just being able to execute down the stretch is big. I said it all year, we're a young team we got to learn but that one [loss] hurt. We just got to keep playing our game. We just got to learn from it."

Sometimes the best learning experiences can stem from bad losses, but the Spurs can only prove whether they learned from the loss in their next opportunity. That comes Sunday afternoon against Dejounte Murray and the Atlanta Hawks.


You can follow Jeremy Brener on Twitter @JeremyBrener.

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