NBA - 511 Memphis Grizzlies @ 512 Utah Jazz
Projected Line: Utah by 6 points
This is a completely catastrophic spot for the Grizzlies. They will play their fourth game in five days, with all of them being on the road and against decent teams. To make things even worse, their games at Portland, at LA against the Clippers and last night at Denver were ball games, so the Grizzlies never had a moment to really rest their key players. For example, last night at Denver, all their starters played at least 35 minutes and so, it wasn't a surprise that they got outscored by 14-29 in the fourth quarter by the Nuggets, where the Grizzlies clearly showed lack of fresh legs down the stretch. Memphis was competitive at Denver mostly thanks to a clear rebounding edge, where they grabbed 55% of the rebounds, something impressive against a team like Denver! Zach Randolph had 10 offensive rebounds on his own!
The main problem for Memphis tonight is that they will have to play tonight once again and they will play in one of the toughest towns in the league. If Memphis showed lack of fresh legs in the fourth quarter against Denver, their legs won't be fresher tonight at Utah. The Jazz has been struggling this season on their perimeter defense, especially since the return of Mo Williams, who forms with Randy Foye, a really poor defensive backcourt duo. However, the Grizzlies's perimeter shooting is poor, they are dead last in the league in 3pts attempts per game and they won't be effective tonight on their long jumpers, looking at the horrible physical spot they have for tonight.
Therefore, this game will quickly turn into a physical inside battle, where the rested Jazz will have a clear edge over the Grizzlies, with Al Jefferson, Paul Millsap, Enes Kanter and Derrick Favors overpowering the tired Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph, who have been forced to play heavy minutes during this road trip due to the lack of quality frontcourt options on the bench with Darrell Arthur's injury. Utah is 0-2 against Memphis this season and they were humiliated at home against this very same Grizzlies team, in a contest where they got outscored by 10-28 in the third quarter. Now with Memphis being in such a horrible spot tonight, I expect Utah to get revenge over them and get an easy win tonight.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 512 Utah Jazz (-2) @ -115 / 1.87 on Bovada
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