Looking for under 182 in Dallas and Memphis tonight. These two played an under the other night even with Dallas (95-85 victor) shooting 40-80 from the field and the teams combining for a 55-point 2nd quarter. Not difficult to come up with a defensive gameplan for this one, as they just saw each other.
Mavericks strengths/weaknesses are not in step with their public perception. They are a solid defense team (6th in efficiency) and only 24th in offensive efficiency, scoring 1.02 points per possession. They don't get to the FT line much and are shooting only 33% from the arc.
Can only see Memphis looking to slow this one down as they're playing their 5th game in 6 nights with travel involved in all 6. In fact, this is the 12th straight game that the Grizzlies have had to fly to get to, as their last consecutive home games were back on St. Patrick's Day weekend. Easy to see them lacking their shooting legs tonight in a fatigue/letdown situation following the impressive upset win in Miami. Their recent success (6 wins in last 8 games) has been fueled by their defense (6 blocked shots last night), as they've played 7 straight unders.
Though Dallas is the fresher team here they're still on a back to back and playing their third game in four nights. The plan to play the starters moderate minutes last night to retain some energy tonight went awry when they were sent to OT in a home loss to Portland. Lamar Odom's indifferent performance led him to be on the bench for the entire 4th quarter and OT. Dirk and Marion both played 43 minutes. This is an older team and energy conservation has to be on their minds tonight.
Winner of this game owns the tiebreaker between the two for playoff seeding purposes. Dallas is a game behind Memphis and neither are assured a playoff berth. So there should be some defensive intensity. Since these teams have to be tired and we'll look for a slow paced game between two defensive minded teams with poor offensive execution.
