The Grizzlies put away the Bears 36 to 14 in the regular season on Saturday night. It was a straight affair from start to finish, though the scoreline tells only half the story. By then you'd already known the Bears were fighting to stay within reach of contention.
The hosts had been up and down of late — that 62:22 thriller followed by two identical 17:52 defeats suggested a side searching for consistency. To be fair, this wasn't about finding balance. It was about proving they could still compete at this level.
The Bears arrived with momentum after back-to-back 23:17 victories, but those results came against sides with different profiles entirely. They'd lost 13:21 to the Cowboys and 23:38 to the Coyotes since. This game brought them together early in terms of what was at stake.
What happened on the field was less about individual brilliance and more about the Grizzlies finally clicking. They had nothing to do all evening in the first quarter, then suddenly everything clicked. The Bears were punished from a corner when they least expected it, and the gap opened fast.
Looking at the numbers afterwards, the 22-point margin felt generous but not outrageous. The Grizzlies have kept three clean sheets on the spin in their last five outings — this one didn't add to that run, but it added something else entirely.
The table goes out of the window in these games, really. What matters is that the Grizzlies finally put together something resembling a complete performance. They're not out of the woods, but they've taken a step.
