NBA - 507 Memphis Grizzlies @ 508 Phoenix Suns
Projected Line: 187 points
This will be the first game of this new "era" for Memphis. Tayshaun Price has already played on the team's last game against Washington, but the spot wasn't good at all for Memphis, as they had played at Oklahoma City the night before on a TNT game, while being super shorthanded. Prince came off the bench and he looked great with 7-11 FG and 3 assists in 32 minutes. For today, Memphis had 3 days off to rest and prepare tonight's game, so this will be their first real game after the trade. Now that Rudy Gay is gone, it seems that Zach Randolph wants to continue Gay's "legacy", as he shot 2-7 FG, 4-17 FG and 3-10 FG on the team's last 3 games, for a combined of 9-34 (26%) FG! It seems that sooner or later, Memphis will have to make one more trade, as they have too many frontcourt players right now. Besides the untouchable Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph, they have Darrell Arthur, Ed Davis and Jon Leuer, while their backcourt is really thin with Jerryd Bayless having to play at both the SG and PG position for heavy minutes and that's not a good sign for the future!
When Lindsey Hunter was appointed as the new Suns's head coach, he said that his team would have to defend better and on their first two games, Phoenix had indeed nice defensive efforts at Sacramento and then, at home against the Clippers, where they allowed 96 and 88 points. However, it seems that Phoenix went back to their old habits after that and in 4 of their last 5 games, Phoenix allowed 108 points or more, with the only exception being a home game against an old tired Lakers team that was on a back to back spot and that was only able to score 13 points in the fourth quarter of that game! Even with these defensive problems, the Suns have been competitive with Hunter as their coach, as after defeating the Lakers, Phoenix led Dallas by 75-74, before getting outscored by 35-24 in the fourth quarter and even on their last game at Golden State, even though they ended up getting blown out by 93-113, the Suns actually had a 10 points lead in that game during the third quarter! However, their lack of in-game consistency has been a big problem for them lately.
Well, the Suns's defense is back to their old habits and to their natural problems in stopping their opponents on their inside game. Golden State scored 66 points in the paint and shot 27-38 FG at the rim against them and the truth is that their opponents have shot 67% FG or better at the rim in 4 of their last 5 games! The only exception was Dallas with 9-21 FG because on the other four games, the Suns allowed a combined of 80-111 FG at the rim for a really poor 72% FG allowed mark. This can become a huge problem for them, as Memphis has a lot of volume on shooting down low and especially against a fired up Zach Randolph, who will want to bounce back tonight. He has been struggling a bit lately, but with three days off to rest prior to this game, I expect Memphis's offense to have a big edge down low tonight.
"This has probably been the worst slump since 2003 for me," Zach Randolph said. "I don't think I've really played good offensively this whole year. I have my spurts. I've been doing other things. I've got to calm down and play my game. Be more focused."
On the other hand, Phoenix's offense has been alternating good moments with some horrible ones. When they are aggressive, they can have a good offense thanks to cuts and pick and roll ball handler plays with Goran Dragic. The truth is that they are shooting 70% FG at the rim over their last 5 games, but the problem is that they forget to pound their opponents down low at times and just force outside shots, where they are just shooting 30.6% 3pts over their last 5 games. This happened on their last game at Golden State, but it was their third game in four nights and they had played a tight game at Dallas the night before!
This will be the fourth and last game between these two teams this season. The first three games were low scoring games, but this time, I expect Phoenix to push up the pace tonight (they are averaging a pace factor of 93.20 under Coach Hunter). Looking at Memphis's offensive bounce back spot and Phoenix's decent offense as well, especially at the paint, I believe this game won't be the low scoring affair that the totals line is currently showing and so, I'll be taking the Over in here.
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