NBA Playoff Betting – (1) Warriors at (5) Grizzlies (Game 6)
By Zack Garrison in News
Updated: January 17, 2018 at 9:39 am ESTPublished:
Golden State Warriors (-5, 193.5 o/u) at Memphis Grizzlies
The Golden State Warriors (67-15, 28-13 away) finally showed up to their Western Conference semifinal series with the Memphis Grizzlies (55-27, 31-10 home), stomping on the underpopulated and overmatched Grizzlies in Games 4 and 5 (101-84 and 98-78) to take a 3-2 series lead. Tonight, the Warriors will try to wrap things up when they visit the FedExForum in Memphis for Game 6 (9:30 PM Eastern Time).
The “Splash Brothers” – Steph Curry and Klay Thompson – took advantage of the absence of Tony Allen (Memphis’ best defender) in Game 5. Thompson had a series-high 21 points while Curry added 18, along with seven rebounds, six steals, and five assists.
Memphis coach Dave Joerger stressed the importance of Allen for his team.
“A guy like [Tony] goes and gets a loose ball, dives on the floor, gets a deflection, gets a steal, gets a putback,” Joerger said in a press conference yesterday. “Those kind of things really kind of help your team go, yeah, you know what? We can get this done. So we really missed that from Tony, let alone what he does as a defender, which I could go on and on for that.”
For the Warriors, tonight is about avoiding an unpredictable Game 7.
“You don’t want to mess around,” Golden State coach Steve Kerr said to the Associated Press. “You never know what can happen [in a Game 7]. So our intent is to go down there and play the kind of defense we’ve played the last two games.”
In the trends, the Warriors are 9-4 ATS in their last 13 road games versus teams with a winning home record, and the Grizzlies are 1-4 ATS in their last five home games versus teams with a winning road record. Add in that the Warriors have easily covered the last two in the series and the fact that Allen (along with point guard Mike Conley) won’t be 100-percent, and Golden State laying the points looks like the play.
Pick: Warriors -5.5.
(Photo credit: Keith Allison (flickr) “Stephen Curry” [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/]. Photo has been cropped.)
Sports Writer
Zack is a tour guide whose favorite sports are football, baseball, and golf. He enjoys giving obnoxious commentary during games and hopes to some day write a book about sports. His favorite underdog victory was the Diamondbacks beating the Yankees in game 7 of the World Series.
