Ronald Tillery of The Commercial-Appeal: Grizzlies coach Dave Joerger didn’t appreciate being down after the first quarter mainly because his starters were slogging along. That all changed when the second unit stepped onto the court Tuesday night. Memphis picked up the pace, started the second period by scoring 20 unanswered points and rode the momentum to a 105-98 victory over the NBA-leading Golden State Warriors in FedExForum. “I think we gave them a little bit of their own medicine,” backup point guard Beno Udrih said. “They like to play that way. We came out with energy. We picked up the pace and we came out making shots.” The Griz made a six-point deficit disappear quickly and held several double-digit leads throughout the game before fending off the Warriors’ late rally. In stopping Golden State’s 16-game winning streak, Memphis (20-4) improved its league-best home record to 12-1. “I thought we were going to win,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “It was just too much to overcome. That’s a great team over there. We had to fight really hard just to get back to where we were.”

Rusty Simmons of the San Francisco Chronicle: All good things must come to an end. For the Warriors, the ending to their franchise-best, 16-game winning streak came Tuesday night with a 105-98 loss to the Grizzlies that the Memphis public-relations team dubbed “Splash vs. Smash.” Without center Andrew Bogut (right knee) and power forward David Lee (left hamstring), the Warriors didn’t have enough size to compete with Grizzlies’ big men Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph. The duo combined for 41 points and 17 rebounds, and the Warriors couldn’t find enough of the magic that characterized most of their historic run. The Warriors shot 41.1 percent from the floor — their second-worst shooting night of the season (35.5 percent at Oklahoma City on Nov. 23), had only 18 assists — their second-worst total of the season (16 at Phoenix on Nov. 9), and were held to fewer than 102 points for just the second time in the past 12 games (also 98 vs. Orlando on Dec. 2). “Our competitiveness is what stands out above all with this team — just how gritty they are and how tough they are,” said Warriors head coach Steve Kerr, who called Tuesday’s offense “scattered.” “Even on a night when we were not playing that well, we found a way to get it within two down the stretch against one of the best teams in the league on their home floor. That says a lot about our guys.”

Anthony Slater of The Oklahoman: Throughout a nightmare opening month, the Thunder’s health luck was unbelievably rare in the worst of ways. But during this renaissance December run, the Thunder’s health luck has been mildly rare in the best of ways. Twenty-five games into the season, the Thunder has all its rotation players healthy. A good portion of teams across the NBA don’t. And a suddenlyred-hot OKC team is feasting on it. The Kings were the latest victim, going down 104-92 to the Thunder at home on Tuesday night. Sacramento surprisingly fired its well-liked coach a day earlier and was without its star center DeMarcus Cousins because of viral meningitis. A bad break and a tumultuous situation. But not one the Thunder was concerned about. “This is an ‘I don’t feel sorry for you’ league,” Scott Brooks said. “When we had a lot of guys hurt, I didn’t get a lot of text messages saying: ‘Hey, hang in there,’ from the other 29 coaches in the league.” So you didn’t hear Brooks doing the same over the past week. Not when the Cavs chose to rest LeBron James in Oklahoma City. Or when OKC faced a depleted Timberwolves team without Ricky Rubio or Nikola Pekovic. Or even when Goran Dragic missed his first game of the season with a minor back ailment on Sunday night in OKC. The Thunder just showed up and continued finding its rhythm and rolling up the standings. Tuesday night served as the latest example.

Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee: Amid cheers of “Peja! Peja!” the third jersey number from the best time in the Sacramento era was retired at Sleep Train Arena. Peja Stojakovic’s No. 16 was retired at halftime of the Kings’ game Tuesday against the Oklahoma City Thunder. “This is an unbelievable moment for me and family,” Stojakovic said during the ceremony. Stojakovic thanked former general manager Geoff Petrie and assistant Wayne Cooper for drafting him, coach Rick Adelman and his staff and his teammates for the honor, as well as the new ownership group that kept the team in Sacramento. Stojakovic joins teammates Chris Webber (No. 4) and Vlade Divac (No. 21) with retired numbers from the Kings’ teams from the late 1990s and early 2000s. The night included videos of former and current Kings talking about Stojakovic and highlights from his time with the team. At his best, Stojakovic was one of the most feared perimeter shooters in the NBA.

Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel: Amid all the absences and injuries, Erik Spoelstra said there has been a move toward simplicity, "Yeah, we've been trying to simplify as much as possible, particularly when you don't know from shootaround to the game who's going to be playing. But our system is our system. We've been trying to simplify for the last month, anyway, just to try to find some consistency with how we're playing." While Spoelstra said the goal was to have distinct first and second units, that simply is not as possible now, "As much as you can, but this is a little bit extreme." Spoelstra insisted there can be no feeling sorry for themselves. "For all of us, you have to embrace the different challenges of the NBA," he said. "It is a privilege to be in this league. Every season is going to be different, different challenges." And, "Look, we're not above having to grind and work and roll up your sleeves and try to build a successful team. So it's different but it's a good challenge." Asked if the absences have the Heat moving more toward player development, Spoelstra said, "Well, we try to incorporate player development with all of our players, even the veteran players."

Filip Bondy of the New York Daily News: Sometimes we all need to be reminded of a team’s sodden roots, of a franchise’s historically comedic existence. Dress up the Nets in hip-hop black uniforms, move them to Brooklyn, sit Beyonce courtside to meet the duchess, and they’re still, somehow, the Nets. They might as well be playing in Commack Arena, forfeiting a playoff game to the Kentucky Colonels. There they were Tuesday night at fancy new Barclays Center, busily losing another game, 95-91, offering little defensive resistance against the Heat, when suddenly water began to drip onto the court in the first quarter. A puddle formed. Puddles are not a good thing on an NBA floor. They can wreck knees and ankles. They might as well be giant banana peels. It took 31 minutes to deploy a tarp up above and stop the leak, caused by the faulty installation of what the Nets called “a new green roof." ... It is hard to emphasize just how poorly the Nets played Tuesday after the water stopped dripping and the floor was toweled off. They didn’t take care of the ball. They couldn’t keep up with Dwyane Wade, who scored 28 points despite a stomach virus. The Heat, playing without Chris Bosh, had dropped six of eight games and was drastically shorthanded. The Nets were playing at home on two days’ rest. No matter. The Nets were beaten and the puddle made the whole place look ridiculous. This team can move from Teaneck to Commack to Nassau to Piscataway to East Rutherford to Newark to Brooklyn. The Nets will never escape their fate. Coaches will flee. Trades will fail. Water will find its own level.

Nakia Hogan of The Times-Picayune: Nearly two months into the season, the New Orleans Pelicans hadn't yet encountered one of those truly embarrassing moments. They barely escaped such disaster at the Smoothie King Center on Tuesday night. With All-Star forward Anthony Davis back in the lineup, the Pelicans had to scratch and claw their way back into the game in the fourth quarter just to get by the lowly Utah Jazz, 119-111. It was quite a contrast to the performances against the LeBron James-led Cleveland Cavaliers on Friday and the Golden State Warriors on Sunday. But it's one the Pelicans will take, nonetheless. "I think there still was a hangover from the other night," Pelicans coach Monty Williams said.

Gordon Monson of The Salt Lake Tribune: The Jazz are losing again, but the feel of this season is 50 lengths down the track from a year ago. Nearly all the players utilized in key roles this time around are in them not just to try to win, rather to advance their games, individually and collectively. The losses, and there have been bunches of them, feature a double-barreled usefulness. 1) Players are edging forward through their playing time. 2) Losing will facilitate another crack at a high lottery pick for a franchise still searching for a star. Many Jazz fans don’t want to hear that because such an admission is too frustrating for them, and because they fear the Jazz are tumbling into the same sort of competitive crater that has trapped other clubs over long periods of time, especially those that have been perennially mismanaged. The Jazz may not be winning yet, but at least they’re united in their plan to fix their shortcomings. Quin Snyder will not be fired because the owner wants him to run four guys back on defense, leaving a cherry-picker at the offensive end, mirroring the successful scheme his 12-year-old daughter’s team had in their junior girls league. No. The Jazz are not the Sacramento Kings.

Dwain Price of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram: Tyson Chandler isn’t the petty type of player who takes solace that the New York Knicks are struggling mightily without him. Struggling after they claimed he was part of the team chemistry issues that doomed last year’s squad. That claim apparently led the Knicks to trade guard Raymond Felton and Chandler to the Dallas Mavericks on June 25. Still, despite being made out to be one of the scapegoats of a Knicks team that failed to qualify for the playoffs last season, Chandler isn’t snickering at the Knicks’ dismal 5-21 record. After all, with a new coach in Derek Fisher and a new offense in the triangle, he saw some of this coming more than a thousand miles away. “Clearly they’re struggling, but you knew they were going to take some lumps with a new coach, new offensive structure,” Chandler said. “The triangle takes some time to learn, so I was expecting it. I don’t know if anybody expected them to be where they are right now. But I expected them to take some lumps early on.”

Frank Isola of the New York Daily News: When Anthony became a free agent last July, Knicks president Phil Jackson expressed hope that Anthony might give the Knicks a hometown discount, a la Nowitzki and Duncan. And Anthony responded. Sort of. He could have made $129 million over five years and instead “settled” for $124M. Maybe stars LeBron, Carmelo and even Kobe Bryant are simply products of an AAU system where the best players are told at an early age that it really is all about you. The best players should make the most money but in a salary cap league those deals can hinder a club. The sporting cultures in Germany and the U.S. Virgin Islands are a little different and therefore Nowitzki and Duncan, respectively, are a little different. Duncan, 38, and Nowitzki, 36, are both in the twilight of their brilliant careers. Their ability to stay healthy, motivated and effective is admirable. But the fact that they have put winning above earning every last penny is what now defines them today. Some superstars talk sacrifice. Others live it and keep contending for championships

J. Michael of CSN Washington: This is starting to sound like a broken record, repeating itself over and over again, but John Wall is playing at yet another level for the Wizards after Tuesday's 109-95 win vs. the Minnesota Timberwolves. Wall posted his 15th double-double of the season, tied for the most in the NBA with Pau Gasol of the Chicago Bulls, with 21 points and tying a career-high with 17 assists. He already had 17 assists in a double-overtime game this season. "I still think he has the best head of him," coach Randy Wittman said after his team improved to 18-6 with their ninth victory in 10 games. "I want him to keep driving. He's really been understanding that there's nothing to rest on here. ... He has an opportunity, from a leadership standpoint, to continue to push this team. I don't want him to take his foot off the pedal and be satisfied. There's nothing surprising here. Let's just keep doing it."

Jerry Zgoda of the Star Tribune: The Timberwolves will contemplate their options now that veteran center Ronny Turiaf won’t play again this season after he underwent surgery to repair his hip in New York City on Tuesday. Turiaf’s contract with a $1.6 million salary expires after this season, which means the Wolves eventually will waive him to clear a roster spot. The question is when and how will they use it, particularly if Ricky Rubio’s return from a severely sprained ankle is on a faster track than once believed. They could simply decide to keep hardship-exception signee Jeff Adrien on because of his bulk and muscle. They could let Adrien’s exception expire Friday and choose to sign a guard — maybe D League sharpshooter Brady Heslip — after that, particularly if they believe Mo Williams’ back problems will remain a consideration. Or maybe they add a player — a versatile defender who can shoot — now that Dec. 15 has passed and teams can trade players they signed as free agents last summer.