Projected Line: LA Clippers by 2 points
This series is being brutal with the home teams winning every game so far. The Clippers being favored by 5.5 points is a pretty considerable line for them, but I really think that Memphis can really steal this contest and win tonight's game straight-up. The evolution of this series is showing the good job Memphis's coach Lionel Hollins is doing in making adjustments throughout the series, especially in comparison to Vinnie Del Negro, who is getting outcoached one more time. Therefore, I believe Memphis is much better prepared to beat the Clippers right now than they were at the start of the series.
The Game 1 was a blowout win for the Clippers, but the score doesn't tell what happened on the court, as Memphis was only down by 1 point at the start of the fourth quarter. The game was pretty weird for the Grizzlies, as Zach Randolph was in foul trouble, something that was a huge blow for Memphis on this game. It's true that Blake Griffin was also in foul trouble during that game, but when they are both on court, Randolph has been clearly outplaying Griffin on this series. Memphis struggled on rebounding and they also struggled in stopping Chris Paul and the rest of the Clippers's backcourt. Rotations-wise, Austin Daye got first-quarter minutes, Keyon Dooling played more minutes (18) than Tony Allen (17) and Jerryd Bayless's good shooting prompted him to get 30 minutes of play, even though his defense was poor and the Grizzlies got outscored by 11 points while Bayless was on the floor.
So, how did the Grizzlies bounced back from that and started to defend better Chris Paul? In Game 1, small guards like Mike Conley, Keyon Dooling and Jerryd Bayless defended Paul at times, with Tony Allen switching onto Paul for just a couple of possessions during the game. In Game 2, the Grizzlies put Tony Allen defending Chris Paul during the last couple of possessions of the game. But, back in Memphis, the Grizzlies finally went bigger on Paul, with Quincy Pondexter and Tony Allen logging heavy minutes on him in the second halves of Games 3 and 4, with even Tayshaun Prince switching onto him for a couple of times. This resulted in Jerryd Bayless getting just 9, 10 and 9 minutes of play in the last three games of the series due to his poor defense.
Memphis's defense is being itself during this series and showing why they are the best defensive team in the West. They are packing the paint and their defensive rotations on the perimeter have been excellent, as the Clippers after shooting 7-19 3pts in Game 1, shot just 2-15, 9-23 and 4-21 3pts on the last three games. Eventually, the Clippers may shoot a bit better tonight, but the Grizzlies isn't giving them a lot of easy looks and so, the Clippers will continue struggling to find good looks to shoot the ball. Offensively, the Grizzlies is simply outscoring the Clippers when the starters are on the court, something worrying for the Clippers. Zach Randolph is dominating down low and if we combine that with the great numbers Marc Gasol has been getting with his mid-range jumpers, Memphis's frontcourt is completely outplaying the Clippers's frontcourt. The key factor for Memphis has been the decision of minimizing the minutes where Tony Allen and Tayshaun Prince have been on court together, as the Clippers can ignore both players on offense to focus on Mike Conley, Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph.
The Clippers tried to play small ball for some moments with Blake Griffin at Center, but he got crushed by Gasol during that span. So, Vinnie Del Negro has a tough job for tonight, while the Grizzlies have already found a way to be very competitive against the Clippers during this series. Therefore, I'll be taking the more prepared Grizzlies on tonight's game plus the points.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 529 Memphis Grizzlies (+5,5) @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
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