NBA 26.1.

[robitale]

Cleveland - Memphis under 185

Cleveland 24-16 will host Memphis 23-19 tonight at Gund Arena. Although Memphis has a worse winning record they have played slightly better lately going 10-2 over last 12 games. So they should have better momentum, but the Cavs have home court advantage and they have always played great infront of their homecrowd.

Both teams have hit some serious injury problems. Cleveland will be without Jeff McInnis (averaging 15,1 pts per game in this season) who sprained his ankle and will be out at least for a week. Also they lost Anderson Varejao (averaging 4,4 pts per game) in last game with bruised ankle. Varejao will be out for 4-6 weeks.

Memphis has been playing without Bonzi Wells (averaging 11,6 pts per game) in last 2 games. Wells has a groin injury and although he is listed as a day-to-day, he didn’t play last night against Orlando so he should be most probably out of the game also tonight. Really bad news for Memphis is that they won`t have their leading scorer Pau Gasol (averaging 18,9 pts per game), who will miss at least 5 games with plantar facialities.

So if we add up points those 4 would score we will see that teams are 50 points short tonight. Can reserves step up and score those 50 points? Hardly! Memphis has been playing very defensively anyway limiting opponents to an average of only 83,9 pts over last 10 games.

Missing their important scorers will force the teams to lock up their defences. The Grizzlies will play second night in a row, so they will have some soreness, Cleveland came from a long road-trip and used only 8 players in last game so they have some tireness in their bones too. Teams met on 13th of December with Cleveland winning the game 92-86 (total 178 pts). Expect it to be low-scoring game again tonight and take under 185 points with medium stakes!

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