NBA - 505 Memphis Grizzlies @ 506 San Antonio Spurs
Projected Line: 178 points
***Bet it with up to 181,5 points!"
The Game 1 of this series was a contest between two elite teams, where one of them was fully ready for the game, while the other looked like they were playing a regular season game, with no scouting report from the opponent. This was exactly what it looked like. Of course San Antonio was the prepared team, while they made the Grizzlies look like a high school team.
Regarding the matchup between the Grizzlies' offense and the Spurs' defense. Gregg Popovich and the Spurs were super ready for Memphis and this will continue throughout the whole series. On their series against Oklahoma City, Memphis benefited from the fact that coach Scott Brooks refused to double team the Grizzlies' frontcourt players, allowing Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph to crush them to post up plays. In practical terms, this could actually have been a nice plan for the Thunder who has a good interior defense, but as soon as Randolph started to outplay Ibaka, Oklahoma City needed to adjust and they didn't, so they shot themselves on the foot with that. But on this series against San Antonio, the Spurs made everything to avoid Randolph from getting the ball in good spots, but as soon as that happened, the Spurs would send a double team to stop him! Of course this takes risks as their weakside defense was exposed, with the Grizzlies getting good looks at the perimeter, but Popovich doesn't care about giving good looks to a bad jump shooting team like the Grizzlies, while Randolph doesn't have the great vision/passing skills that Marc Gasol has to crush them. The Grizzlies' starters tried to avoid as much as possible to shoot from long range, as their gameplan was to pound down low the Spurs, but San Antonio was brilliant in preventing that from happening. Note that Quincy Pondexter shot 5-9 3pts and he was the only player from Memphis that took advantage of that space given to his team on the outside.
But the major problem for Memphis was really how San Antonio pounded them on offense. It was even hilarious how Memphis's defense ended up doing exactly what the Spurs wanted them to do! As expected, San Antonio ran a lot of pick and rolls (22.6% volume of pick and roll ball handler plays), with a great 8-17 FG mark and their intention was to especially involve Zach Randolph on the pick and rolls to expose him, as he is a poor pick and roll defender. But worse than that for the Grizzlies was how they overhelped on the Spurs' player that had the ball, something that allowed San Antonio to use their nice ball movement to get the ball into the open player, who would then make a nice long-range shot. This is why all 14 treys made by the Spurs were assisted! Mike Conley and Tony Allen weren't aggressive on fighting through screens and this game ended up being a drive and kick festival by San Antonio. This was the key of this game and even though I took San Antonio on the spread, I never expected the Grizzlies to be so poorly prepared for this game. Memphis will need to defend in the same way that the Pacers did on their series against the Knicks: stay home on the shooters and stop gambling on defense while looking for turnovers!
The Game 1 of this series had according to my numbers a 82.10 pace, the slowest paced game by both teams during this postseason. Still, both teams were able to score double digits on fast break points, while the fourth quarter was played with both teams using small lineups! So, I wouldn't be surprised at all if tonight's game is played at an even slower pace! Both teams generally don't commit a lot of turnovers, Memphis wants to operate on the half court, while the Spurs can also be super patient on offense, passing the ball or re-starting pick and rolls just in order to get a better look on each possession.
So, the X factor of tonight's game will be what Memphis will be able to do in both ends of the floor, as San Antonio doesn't have to change anything for tonight, after their dominating on the Game 1 of this series. With the Grizzlies having just 1 day off to prepare this contest, there won't be a lot of time for major alterations. I don't think Memphis will be able to change a lot offensively, as even though they will come a bit more aggressive, their style will be the same: they will try to feed their frontcourt down low, as they have been doing for the whole season, but they will have problems against the Spurs' aggressive interior defense. Eventually, they will attempt more treys, but they are indeed a bad jump shooting team and so, they won't be effective in those. So, I believe the major difference will be on defense, where Memphis was terrible in Game 1 by playing in an unusual style for them. The Grizzlies were also an elite 3pts defensive team because their frontcourt led by Marc Gasol doesn't need help to hang around with their direct opponents and this frees up Prince/Allen/Conley to harass the opposing perimeter players.
During Game 1, Tony Allen was caught several times helping Marc Gasol (does the DPOY really need any help?) and gambling for steals, Mike Conley didn't fight the screens, the Grizzlies double teamed Gary Neal just to let Matt Bonner alone to fire treys, etc. Just a bunch of unusual defensive errors for them! Unlike their offensive problems, this defensive problems can be quickly adjusted, as they will just need to get back to their basics on defense. With this game being played on a really slow pace and with Memphis defending better and being more competitive, we won't have in here a trash 4th quarter like in Game 1, with no defensive intensity and played by small lineups that resulted in 58 points scored during that quarter. This won't happen tonight and so, I expect a very low scoring game tonight. Therefore, I'll be taking the Under in here.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 505/506 Under 183 @ -115 / 1.87 on Bovada
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