Russell Westbrook and the Oklahoma City Thunder will get a chance for revenge against the Memphis Grizzlies on Wednesday night after falling to them in spectacular fashion back in December. Based on records, these two teams are very evenly matched with Westbrook leading a strong, fast-paced Thunder offense against Marc Gasol and the No. 3 ranked Memphis defense. Of course, the offense isn’t completely inept in Memphis either as the team showed the last time they faced the Thunder.
This war on the floor will go down Wednesday, January 11, 2017, at 8 p.m. ET at Chesapeake Energy Arena. The game will be televised live on ESPN.
We'll have NBA odds at BookMaker.eu available for this and every game on the NBA Wednesday schedule.
Odds Analysis
Obviously a much better team at home, the Thunder will get to host the Grizzlies in their search for revenge. That’s a big swing in this game, but the Thunder still come into action having lost four of their last six as of Monday. Though, Memphis has dropped four of eight SU and ATS.
Over the course of the season, these two teams are nearly identical ATS with a tie all that separates their records.
Recently, we’ve seen the good and the bad from both of these teams. Both are a bit up and down with the Thunder relying almost too much on Westbrook and have shown themselves to be a bit vulnerable at times against the better defensive teams in the NBA.
That said, the Grizzlies have struggled when given extra rest—at least ATS—and have had a less than spectacular road record of late.
Last Meeting
The Thunder and Grizzlies last met in Memphis shortly before the start of the New Year where the Grizzlies destroyed Oklahoma City by a 114-80 final.
In that game, the Thunder held close in the first quarter, but the Grizzlies broke out headed into the half as Oklahoma City scored just 39-points in the first half. They came out in the second half a bit stronger, but faltered in the fourth quarter ultimately losing by 34-points.
The Thunder shot just 33.8-percent from the floor and a disastrous 18.2-percent beyond the arc. They had nearly twice as many free throw attempts, but sank just 68.4-percent of their chances there, too.
While Oklahoma City isn’t one of the better shooting teams from three point range, they do usually shoot much better than they did in that game both inside and out. For an offense ranked amongst the top-10 in the nation, they fell flat against an excellent Memphis defense.
That defense held Russell Westbrook to just 21-points, shooting only 6-for-19 from the floor. Westbrook was heavily guarded, but still took a ton of shots as the rest of the team struggled to get in position, too. Honestly, Enes Kanter was the only player to have a solid game, shooting 7-for-11 for 19 points, but it wasn’t nearly enough to keep the Thunder in the game.
Meanwhile, in addition to stout defense, the Grizzlies were able to shoot 52.4-percent from the floor and capitalized on the eight steals and nine blocks. They were led by Marc Gasol inside though the team had three different players with at least 21-points, two coming off the bench.
Scheduling Situation
Memphis gets an extra day off before taking on the Thunder, but it’ll still be the team’s seventh road game in their last nine days. They’re 2-4 SU and ATS in the first six of those road games. Surprisingly, however, one of those two wins came against the Warriors despite entering play as 13.5-point underdogs.
While the Grizzlies’ overall record in their last handful of road games, gives bettors pause on backing the team away from home, their victory over Golden State shows that they can certainly beat anybody on the road if things break right.
Let’s not forget, this is a very talented Grizzlies team even if they’re 0-5 ATS with extra time off.
The opposition, the Thunder, meanwhile, will be playing with standard rest. They’re 14-11-1 ATS on regular rest and 12-7 ATS at home.
Heading into Wednesday game, the Thunder will have only played three of their last 11 games at home while the team is just 2-4 SU in their last six games and 3-3 ATS in that time, they’ve won all three of those home games both SU and ATS.
Free NBA ATS Picks
With Oklahoma City hosting the Grizzlies, the Thunder should have a much better time against Memphis than they did a couple weeks ago. Still, that doesn’t change the fact that the Grizzlies’ defense was able to effectively shut down Oklahoma City on offense.
Look for Memphis to keep Westrbook relatively at bay, though he should shoot a bit better than he did last time around.
In the end, the Grizzlies get a much closer victory over the Thunder as they enter with the confidence given their previous win and their recent victory over the Warriors.
NBA Odds: Grizzlies 103, Oklahoma City 100
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