Portland Trail Blazers at Memphis Grizzlies
Time: 7 PM CT (NBA League Pass)
Spread: MEM -2.5
Total: 199
Betting odds c/o 5dimes
The Portland Trail Blazers may be the feel good story of the 2015-16 season. Portland is 25-27 and just one game behind No. 8 Utah in the West. It will travel to Memphis to face the Grizzlies in a game NBA oddsmakers are favoring Memphis by 2.5 points. The game is at 7 Central and will air on NBA League Pass for subscribers.
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The Blazers have won seven of its past 10 games, and though two games under .500 the team possesses a +0.2 point differential, which is substantially better than the team’s beneath it and better than Memphis, the Dallas Mavericks and the Houston Rockets, all of which are positioned in playoff spot currently. If Portland gets a little better at executing in close games, it could hang with any of those teams, and it trails No. 5 Memphis by 10 games.
But point differential is hardly all that matters. Portland is a close underdog in this game tonight, but a close loss will not be enough to satisfy one of the best courts in the NBA. Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum have been brilliant together, and it is a pairing that rivals that of the Washington Wizards, Phoenix Suns, or any other two-guard pairing not named Golden State.
Portland is coming off a 96-79 win over the Houston Rockets on Saturday night. Portland got 37 points from its backcourt on a combined 13 of 33 shooting effort. Lillard had 10 assists in the game, while McCollum finished with seven boards. The pair seems to compensate when the other lacks in any area of the game, and that is a big key in Portland’s success.
The frontcourt has been patently mediocre, but shows significant potential. Both Miles Plumlee and Meyers Leonard make a good, young two-headed monster at the 5-spot. Ed Davis is a top-notch defender and finishes well at the rim.
Even so, Portland will just need to add a dominant paint protecting big man, and those additions are relatively easy for a team that now has immense assets after jettisoning all of its starting lineup save Lillard.
Lillard has been great thus far in February, averaging 20.7 points and 11 assists per game. The Blazers are 2-1 in the month so far, having defeated Houston and the Milwaukee Bucks while falling 110-103 to the Toronto Raptors. The Blazers are perhaps most surprisingly better on the offensive end. Portland has averaged 102 points per game this season which ranks it No. 6 in the West.
McCollum is the chic pick for the NBA’s Most Improved Player award. After lingering in obscurity his first two seasons, he has essentially tripled his scoring output while more than doubling his minutes. McCollum averages 20.8 points, 4.2 assists and 3.7 rebounds in 35 minutes a night, while shooting 39.5 percent on threes at 2.8 attempts per game. There is no player who has made an equivalent leap league-wide.
The Grizzlies had a five-game winning streak snapped last time out by the Dallas Mavericks, falling 114-110 in Overtime last night. Chandler Parsons battered Memphis for 26 points, including two threes in OT that helped Dallas squeak by the Grizz.
Memphis got 22 points from Marc Gasol. But the big man will hit free agency this summer. Expect a number of teams to court Gasol. He is a former Defensive Player of the Year and a talent that can anchor the 5-spot with strong play in most facets of the game. He leads the Grizzlies in scoring at 16.7 points per game, while also averaging seven boards and 3.8 assists per game.
The story is not told through statistics with Gasol, but he does post solid numbers, and defensively he forces turnovers averaging 2.35 steals/blocks per game. Teams realize the value of Pau’s brother, and it can be expected that he receives a max-contract.
