January 7th - New Orleans Pelicans VS Memphis Grizzlies - 18-22
Coming off a massive annihilation of the league-worst Cleveland Cavaliers, we look to inch closer to the .500 mark again against a team that's floundering hard. Since December 14th, Memphis have gone 2-10, including losing their last 5 straight. They've lost at home, and on the road. They've lost against good teams (Houston, Sacramento, Golden State) and they've lost to bad teams (Miami, Knicks). They aren't playing well at all, and it's showing, as with a win tonight we can leapfrog them in the conference standings and finally stop being 14th in the West. Let's take a look at them:
Offensive Rating: 27th
Defensive Rating: 6th
Rebounds per game: 30th
Assists per game: 20th
Steals per game: 6th
Blocks per game: 2nd
2pt percentage: 22nd
3pt percentage: 22nd
The formula against Memphis is obvious: crash the boards, and play with pace. They are a good defensive team, no question, but they play with the league's slowest pace and at least part of that is due to the nearly 34 year old Marc Gasol being simply unable to run up and down the court all game anymore. If we can play even reasonable defense, that too shouldn't be a large issue, as Memphis have repeatedly shown a simple inability to perform offense to a high standard this season. As plainly as possible: if we are even mediocre on defense, this game should not be difficult.
Both Dillon Brooks and Jevon Carter are likely to be out, listed as questionable and doubtful respectively as of yesterday. Nikola Mirotic remains out for us, and Moore is questionable.
Mike Conley exists. There does seem, however, to be a strange reality in which he only exists if Jrue Holiday isn't present, as the last time he got matched up with Jrue he was held to 9 points on 2 of 12 shooting. He's averagine 20 points and 6 assists per game, and playing solid defense, but his 41% from the field and 35% from three is far from deadly when there's an elite defender on him. If Jrue can even come close to replicating his last performance on Conley, it should be relatively easy to negate his presence.
After that is Marc Gasol: as mentioned previously, he's too old and slow to play with pace and therefore there's a real possibility for AD and Randle to simply play him into fatigue within the first half. Averaging 16 points and 8 rebounds, and shooting 36% from three, Gasol is still an offensive threat and with 4.5 assists per game, he can still disect vulnerable defenses with his sharp passing, but his defense, while still intelligent and commendable, is not longer capable of keeping up with the speed and versatility of someone like AD. I could easily see him being exploited well, if we play a cogent and pass-heavy offense.
Finally it's Jaren Jackson Jr. He's averaging 14 points on 52% shooting for the Grizz, and is leading their team in blocks per game with 1.6 per contest. He takes 65% of his shots within 10 feet of the basket, and shoots only 25% or so from beyond 16 feet. As long as someone like Randle can deny him deep post position and cuts, his offense gets severely stunted as he's yet to develop a complete offensive game. He's having a good rookie season for Memphis and has a lot of potential, but if we can keep him playing in the midrange he won't have much success scoring, and right now that's his primary weapon as he is neither a skilled rebounder, nor playmaker.
So that's it. Let's get us a win and see if that Cavs blowout wasn't just a total fluke, shall we? Let's go and #DoItBig
