Projected Line: Memphis by 7 points
Brooklyn is coming from a win in Minnesota, where they took advantage of their edges on offense in terms of size in the backcourt and with Brook Lopez down low. The Nets shot 7-12 FG on post ups and 7-11 FG on off screens, in a clear sign of that. Brook Lopez crushed the Wolves with 10-16 FG in just 26 minutes. As much as the Wolves showed good effort, the mismatches were just too much for them. Brooklyn had a huge edge on rebounding, but they showed very little flow on their offense, while committing sloppy turnovers that Minnesota took advantage to score 16 points off turnovers and 17 fast break points for a nice 8-12 FG in transition plays! On the other hand, Memphis is coming from a home win against the Lakers. They struggled at the beginning, with Dwight Howard putting both Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph in foul trouble. The Grizzlies manged to score points especially by forcing turnovers and good aggression from their bench. When Memphis's starting frontcourt returned to the court, they crushed the Lakers on the rebounds and helped the Grizzlies in having a good offensive game with 6-10 FG on transitions, 9-9 FG on offensive rebounds and 10-23 FG on pick and roll ball handler plays.
Regarding tonight's game, this is an excellent spot to fade Brooklyn, as this is a tough matchup for them. All edges that Brooklyn had on offense against the Wolves won't be repeated tonight in Memphis. I'm talking about the size edge on the backcourt, Brook Lopez dominating down low and rebounding edge. Lopez will be facing the best defensive center in the league tonight in Marc Gasol and of course, he won't have the edge down low that he had against the Wolves, as Memphis is #2 on post up defense by allowing just 0.73 PPP! Memphis's backcourt defense is amazing and if Brooklyn insists tonight on isolation plays, then Memphis's #1 isolation defense in the league will make them struggle. This is a bad spot for the Nets's offense that has struggled in the last three games with offensive ratings of 100.20, 102.08 and 102.99!
On the other hand, if there is an area where Brooklyn is going to struggle tonight is on turnovers and on transition defense. The Nets have been struggling on turnovers, with 14, 18, 19 and 15 turnovers on their last four games. They commit a lot of silly mistakes that will result in easy transition points to their opponents. That's why they allowed 29, 17, 10 and 17 fast break points on their last four games and now against the Grizzlies, they will struggle big time on this area. Memphis is #2 on opponent turnover rate and this against a turnover-prone team will result in a huge edge favoring the Grizzlies's offense, who is also #10 in transitions with 1.16 PPP! Memphis's backcourt had a very good game against the Lakers, they are more confident and the fact that they made that trade with Cleveland confirms that the Memphis's stating lineup will remain together in the near future, so they will also be less distracted with trade rumors. I believe in an easy win for Memphis tonight, so I'll take them in here.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 810 Memphis Grizzlies (-4) @ -110 / 1.91 on 5 Dimes
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