San Antonio Spurs or Memphis Grizzlies: Who Starts as Favorite in their Match-up?

With the Lakers playing the Golden State Warriors in the play-in tournament for the 7th seed in the western conference playoffs, the San Antonio Spurs and the Memphis Grizzlies are set to battle in the play-in tournament for the NBA playoffs as well. The winner will bad the 8th seed in the western conference playoffs.

It is going to be exciting to see the Spurs battle it out against the Memphis Grizzlies. The San Antonio Spurs have the longest-tenured coach in Gregg Popovich who plays a huge role in the Spurs’ offense and defense. The Spurs’ main source of offense has been DeMar Derozan; an excellent mid-range shooter and slasher. However other players like Dejounte Murray and Lonnie Walker IV have been picking up the load on offense. Patty Mills and Rudy Gay have always been solid contributors but Murray and Walker’s development on the offensive side can give the Spurs the edge they need against Memphis. Jakob Poetl does a well enough job of keeping the defense intact while other role players and a couple of rookies have been giving glimpses of hope every now and then.

Now onto the Memphis Grizzlies. Grizzlies are led by Ja Morant and his high-flying antics. Morant is an exceptional ball handler with enough explosiveness to dunk on anyone in this league. Some of the other offensive load is taken up by Jonas Valanciunas and the recently recovered Jaren Jackson Jr. Players like Brandon Clarke and Dillion Brooks took the offensive load upon themselves in the absence of Jaren Jackson Jr. and their production has been nothing less than amazing. Grayson Allen is developing into an excellent marksman from beyond the arc, shooting three’s at a very high clip and rate. And the ex-Spur, Kyle Anderson to has given Memphis the spark that it needed in the past years.

Now it is going to be exciting to see Ja Morant and DeMar DeRozan go head to head along with their respective squads. Spurs hold the advantage of a better overall game, being decent enough on both offense and defense. Whereas the Grizzlies have a much more explosive offense when compared to the San Antonio Spurs, however the same cannot be said about their defense. It is definitely going to be an interesting matchup between not just the teams but a couple of players as well.

Dejounte Murray is going to match up with Ja Morant and this duel of two up-and-coming point guards is going to be a thing to watch whereas you can expect Derozan to have a good game against Grayson Allen. But if Memphis head coach Taylor Jenkins chooses to put Dillion Brooks on Derozan; now that is going to be a matchup worth watching.

It is too early to say who will win the play-in tournament and bag the 8th spot in the western conference finals but the game is forming upto be nerve-racking for both Grizzlies and Spurs fans. The Grizzlies face the Spurs on Thursday, 5 am IST.