The Memphis Grizzlies made NBA history last night against the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Grizzlies blew out the Thunder 152-79, the largest victory in NBA history. It was a truly historic performance from the Grizzlies who shut down a very poor Oklahoma City squad. But it isn’t just NBA history that was made.
As mentioned by Reddit user u/jack64467, The Grizzlies’ 73-point victory over the Thunder tied them with the Chicago Bears’ 1940 NFL Championship win for the biggest blowout across all major American sports.
The Bears won 73-0 over the Washington Redskins, the margin of defeat being the same as the Grizzlies’ win over OKC.
Largest Win In Each Major US League:
NFL: Chicago Bears vs. Washington Redskins, 1940 (73-0) (73 points)
NBA: Memphis Grizzlies vs. Oklahoma City Thunder, 2021 (152-79) (73 points)
MLB: Chicago White Sox vs. Cleveland Blues, 1982 (35-4) (31 runs)
NHL: Detroit Red Wings vs. New York Rangers, 1944 (15-0) (15 goals)
Via: Statmuse
What makes the Grizzlies’ performance even more impressive is that they were able to pull off this victory without their star point guard Ja Morant. Morant did not play the game, but the Grizzlies were still able to dominate the Thunder into the biggest victory of all time.
Draymond Green even reacted to the blowout, joking that OKC should be fined for losing by that amount. But this loss will sting the Thunder, especially given their fall from grace in recent years. At this time 10 years ago, the Thunder had three future MVPs in their team and were en route to their first-ever NBA Finals.
And since then, calamitous player departures have left them in a rebuilding state. It isn’t all bad, given the treasure chest of draft picks to build their future team around their current star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. But this loss shows just how far away they are from being a championship-level team again.
The Thunder will hope to bounce back in their next game against the Detroit Pistons on Monday. They will have the weekend to work over their team and see what changes need to be made to prevent another blowout of massive proportions going forward.
