NBA - 711 New York Knicks @ 712 Memphis Grizzlies
Projected Line: Memphis by 9 points
In my opinion, Memphis is the best team in the Western conference right now and they will be looking to make a statement tonight on an ESPN game, while beating the only undefeated team in the league right now. The Grizzlies bench has been playing very well this season and they are coming from an excellent road win in Oklahoma City. It was one of those games where Memphis is able to do everything well: they were competitive on rebounds, they had just 8 turnovers and they shot well from everywhere on the court, while Rudy Gay had a huge game on a 12-21 FG night. Memphis shot 9-18 FG on post up plays, the kind of play they used the most during the game! Memphis took 21 more shots than the Thunder, they eliminated Oklahoma City's transition game and they didn't allow second chance points and they simply outplayed, out-toughed and outclassed the Thunder.
They will now face the Knicks, who will play their first back to back game of the season tonight. They are coming from a win in San Antonio, where they had once again a low number of assists with just 17! They were down by 12 points with just 7 minutes to go, but due to Tony Parker's and Manu Ginobili's shooting struggles down the stretch, the Knicks were able to comeback into the game and surprisingly win it down the stretch. They had no easy points on the inside with just 15-28 FG at the rim, but they shot well from the outside. They keep struggling on the rebounds by grabbing just 53.83%, 48.06%, 42.63%, 49.60%, 44.46% and 45.45% of the rebounds on their games, while their offense is almost exclusively based on pick and roll ball handler plays, with the guards taking advantage of a screen for a big player and then taking a quick shot. They shot 10-25 FG on this kind of plays last night, on a 27% volume! They also had 17.5% of volume on spot up plays with 9-18 FG 1.44 PPP, while shooting 7-14 3pts! There isn't much more they can do on offense.
As we have watched once again yesterday, the Knicks isn't a good team in defending near the basket, as San Antonio shot 16-23 FG at the rim yesterday, with Tiago Splitter having a big game because of that. In fact, the Knicks are allowing 71% FG at the rim this season and with Memphis having Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph, they will pound the Knicks down low tonight. On the other side, if there is a team that can really limit the Knicks' offense, that team is Memphis, as they are #7 on isolation plays defense, #4 on pick and roll ball handler defense and #8 on spot ups defense. Memphis has all the tools to take advantage of a very favorable matchup against the Knicks and if we combine that with the bad spot of the NY team, I expect an easy win for the Grizzlies tonight and so, I'll be taking them in here.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 712 Memphis Grizzlies (-6) @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
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