NBA - 507 Memphis Grizzlies @ 508 Detroit Pistons
Projected Line: 189 points
It looks like Memphis is making progress with their new look roster in comparison to the "Rudy Gay Era". With Tayshaun Prince in Memphis instead of Rudy Gay, there aren't a lot of doubts that Memphis will continue being an elite defensive team, so the main question was related to their offense. Gay is very talented, but he takes too many bad shots, something that Prince doesn't do. So far, Prince is averaging "just" 10.3 points per game at Memphis, but he is shooting 49.2% FG and committing just 1 turnover per game, in another proof of Prince's great IQ. Memphis's offense was in a groove coming out to the All Star Break. They had four consecutive games with an offensive rating higher than 105 - something that had only happened once earlier on this season! If Memphis is able to be more consistent on offense during the second half of the season, then they can be a really tough team to beat due to their toughness, defense and now with an improved offense as well.
With Jose Calderon running the show, Detroit is clearly a better team. Not only Calderon is having great shooting numbers since he joined the Pistons (9-17 FG and 24 points on the team's last game against Washington), as he knows how to control the flow of the game and give the ball to Greg Monroe on the right spots, who is having the best month of the season because of that with 18.4 ppg, 52.6% FG and 13.3 rpg! I remember that not so long ago, Monroe shot 44.9% FG during December! Detroit is now playing in a more uptempo style, while creating more transition chances, but they need to control their turnover numbers in order to be efficient on this style, as they committed 20 and 17 turnovers in two of their last three games! Detroit ended the first half of the season by winning three of their last four games and they have expectations in having a good second half of the season and who knows if they have a shot at the 8th seed, if Milwaukee struggles during the second half of the season?
Memphis has been playing clearly better on offense lately, but their defense has been regressing. The main factor for that has been their poor transition defense, as in three of their last five games, they have allowed more than 15 fast break points to their opponents. Memphis's transition defense is #7 in the league with 1.10 PPP allowed for the season, but they have allowed 1.27 PPP on their last five games! This can quickly become a problem against the Pistons, who have now as their new philosophy to score fast with 15.3 fast break points per game over their last six games! On the other hand, the Grizzlies will have an edge down low with Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol, as the Pistons are far from being a good interior defensive team, especially without Andre Drummond. Detroit's spot up defense is #30 in the league with 0.92 PPP allowed for the season, but their numbers are even much worse lately with 1.17 PPP allowed over their last five games! With the Grizzlies having the edge down low, this will give more space on the outside to their shooters and with their new good offensive dynamic, Memphis has a great spot to have a nice offensive game tonight.
The previous game between these two teams ended with a 90-78 result, but the game was actually being a decent scoring game, until the fourth quarter where Memphis outscored Detroit by 14-12! That won't happen tonight, with both teams being much better on offense lately, so I believe this game will be a relatively high scoring game, therefore I'll be taking the Over in here.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 507/508 Over 185,5 @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
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