NBA - 715 Memphis Grizzlies @ 716 Los Angeles Clippers
Projected Line: 192 points
In a way, we are in front of a similar scenario in here to the one we faced yesterday in the game between Miami and Boston. These two teams faced each other on last year's playoffs, on a series that went to 7 games and that was quite brutal. After two good offensive games, both teams struggled to score, while defense dominated, so all the advanced stats of both teams were ugly from an offensive standpoint.
For today's game, nothing that happened in that series really matters. I remember you that Chris Paul and Blake Griffin played most of the series while being physically limited and Caron Butler had an hand injury. Meanwhile, Zach Randolph simply wasn't ready to compete at 100% as well. For tonight, all these players are 100% healthy are ready to go.
The Clippers had an interesting preseason by going 5-3 on their game and 4-0 in the games when both Chris Paul and Blake Griffin played. If we're just talking about the games where they were at full strength, they defeated the Nuggets, the Jazz, the Heat and the Warriors, while winning three of those four games by double digits points. It's clear that Chris Paul is more adapted to the team and Coach Vinny Del Negro wants the team to score more points in transition than last season, where they were almost a 100% half court team. When Eric Bledsoe enters the court, then the pace is raised even higher and so, it wasn't a surprise to see the Clippers scoring 18, 15, 19, 20, 24, 5, 23 and 14 fast break points during the preseason. I watched their preseason game against Denver and Chris Paul was great on feeding the frontcourt despite being pressured by the Nuggets defense. The same will happen today against the Grizzlies.
Memphis had also a good preseason without any injuries, excluding Tony Allen. Zach Randolph looked good and that's excellent news for Memphis, who will now have their great firepower back on the frontcourt with Marc Gasol, Zach Randolph and Rudy Gay. Memphis had some moments last season where they were inconsistent, but this season with Zach Randolph at 100%, I expect them to be a more consistent team. The Clippers' frontcourt is athletic, but I don't think they are skilled enough to defend the almost unstoppable offensive combination of Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph.
I expect a relatively fast paced game, with both teams having a good efficiency on offense tonight, unlike what happened on last year's playoffs series. Both teams are now healthy and looked good on offense during the preseason and therefore, I'll be taking the Over in here.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 715/716 Over 187.5 @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
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