Projected line: 201 points
Memphis was finally aggressive in their last game in New Jersey and so, they were finally able to score more than 100 points in regular time since January 21st against Sacramento! Note that their bench shot a combined of 4-19 FG, so the good offensive outcome came from the starters. Memphis was aggressive with 22 fast break points with 10-13 FG in transition, 19 offensive rebounds and a good pounding near the basket with 16-28 FG at the rim and 10-16 FG from 3-9 feet! When the Grizzlies stop having a stagnant offense with a lot of volume in the perimeter, they are capable of having good offensive games! For today, that should be possible against Denver, in a potential up and down game. Denver's defense is just #27 in transition plays by allowing a whooping 1.17 PPP and besides that the Nuggets are a bad defensive rebounding team (#25) and as coach Karl has been using small lineups, Memphis won't have problems in scoring near the basket like they did in their last game against the Nets.
On the other hand, Denver is coming from an ugly game at Dallas, where they had no chance against the smart defensive team of the Mavs, who took away from them their biggest strengths: they stopped the Nuggets transition offense, making them shooting from the outside, which made them struggle, as they are generally poor from the outside and they were on a back to back spot to make things even worse for them! Coach Carlisle put Marion guarding Lawson and Miller, making the Nuggets' PG's struggle the whole game! Denver's transition offense was terrible with 4-13 FG and the zone defense that Dallas used made them struggle even more! However, I expect Denver to bounce back offensively today, as Memphis won't be able to defend the rim as well as Dallas did. The Grizzlies are allowing 62% FG this season at the rim, with 66% FG on their last 10 games, so they aren't an elite team on this are and they lack depth on the frontcourt to make things even worse for them.
I wouldn't be surprised if Memphis uses a small ball lineup with Gay at PF against Denver today. In the first game of the series, the game went to overtime, with Memphis winning it at the end by 100-97. However, note that both teams had 20 and 28 fast break points, but they struggled heavily on shooting the ball with Memphis shooting 38.4% FG, with Gay shooting 7-20 FG, while Denver shot 43.8% FG, with Gallinari shooting 1-10 FG! I expect this game to have much better shooting, with a fast pace and a lot of effectiveness on transition plays from both teams and so, I'll take the over in here.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 815/816 Over 196 @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
No comments:
Post a Comment