Official Thread - Wizards vs Grizzlies (3/3/14)

[pineappleheadindc]

.

____________VS________

____31-28 (5th East/2nd Southeast Div)___________________33-25 (9th West/4th Southwest Div)
_________15-14 Home, 9-14 vs West_________________________15-11 Road, 14-6 vs East
__________7-3 Last 10, Streak: W6 ___________________________7-3 Last 10, Streak: W1


After a successful road trip, representing the most powerful city in the world, YOUR Washington Wizards return home to a snowy Monday night match-up with the Memphis Grizzlies. The Wiz come back to the friendly confines of the phone booth with a couple of wins to their credit after a short road trip to Toronto and Philadelphia. They have been benefiting from stellar play from PG John Wall and the hot shooting of SF Trevor Ariza. Since PF Nene Hilario went down with a sprained MCL, C Marcin Gortat has stepped up his game. The Wall to Gortat pick and roll has become a staple of Washington's halfcourt offense.

Memphis, which currently sits just out of the playoffs in the always-tough western conference, is led by PF Zach Randolph.] Z-Bo has been a consistent producer in his 4+ years in Memphis (save the 11-12 season, which was marred by a torn MCL.) PG Mike Conley is, perhaps, underrated in terms of national exposure. But he's a skilled guard who possesses a scoring touch. C Marc Gasol is a difficult match-up, possessing an ability to score, board, and pass the ball. He averages almost 4 dimes per game from the center position.


Line-Ups


________________________________________
_____________PG John Wall___________________________________PG Mike Conley
_____20.0 ppg (43% fg, 33% 3pt, 83% ft)___________________17.5 ppg (45% fg, 36% 3pt, 85% ft)
_____8.7 apg, 4.2 rpg, 2.0 spg, 0.5 bpg___________________6.2 apg, 2.7 rpg, 1.5 spg, 0.3 bpg



________________________________________
_____________SG Bradley Beal________________________________SG Courtney Lee
_____16.7 ppg (41% fg, 41% 3pt, 81% ft)___________________10.2 ppg (49% fg, 40% 3pt, 89% ft)
_____3.5 apg, 3.8 rpg, 0.9 spg, 0.2 bpg___________________1.5 apg, 2.3 rpg, 0.8 spg, 0.4 bpg



________________________________________
_____________SF Trevor Ariza_______________________________SF Tayshaun Prince
_____14.8 ppg (46% fg, 42% 3pt, 79% ft)___________________6.1 ppg (39% fg, 31% 3pt, 54% ft)
_____2.7 apg, 6.4 rpg, 1.9 spg, 0.3 bpg___________________1.7 apg, 3.1 rpg, 0.6 spg, 0.2 bpg



________________________________________
____________PF Trevor Booker______________________________PF Zach Randolph
______6.3 ppg (55% fg, 0% 3pt, 55% ft)___________________17.3 ppg (46% fg, 0% 3pt, 74% ft)
_____5.6 rpg, 0.9 apg, 0.5 spg, 0.5 bpg__________________10.3 rpg, 2.5 apg, 0.6 spg, 0.2 bpg



________________________________________
_____________C Marcin Gortat___________________________________C Marc Gasol
_____12.7 ppg (54% fg, 100% 3pt, 68% ft)___________________13.6 ppg (46% fg, 33% 3pt, 81% ft)
___-__9.1 rpg, 1.5 apg, 0.5 spg, 1.5 bpg____________________6.5 rpg, 3.7 apg, 1.0 spg, 1.2 bpg




---------------------------------------

The Wizards are on a roll but Monday night's opponent is not from the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference. The Grizz have strengths at the PF and C positions at the very time that the Wizards are struggling with injuries to their bigs. In addition, one wonders what kind of home crowd will show up to the game when up to 10" of snow is forecast to fall in the District throughout the day.

-- Can the Wizards keep up their winning streak?

-- What can they do to neutralize the Z-Bo/Gasol combination?

-- Trevor Ariza and five 3-pointers. You got him covering that line or no?

Post your thoughts and comments below.

What: Washington Wizards at Memphis Grizzlies
When: 7:00p.m. EST
Where: Verizon Center -- Washington, DC
Radio: WFED-AM, 1500
TV: CSN, NBA League Pass, Quasi-legal internet streams

Let's go Wizards!

[miller31time]

Any chance the game gets postponed due to snow?

[queridiculo]

Not a chance, Gasol will go off for 40.

[Sluggerface]

I'm going to take the reverse assumption and say that Conley is the X-factor for Memphis. Randolph and Gasol are big bodies, but they have been marred by injury and they've been horrible offensively this year. As long as Wall can lock down Conley (which I have faith he'll do) and this team sticks to playing defense during stretches where we'll struggle to score, I'm pretty confident the win streak continues.

I'd feel better if Kevin was playing though.

[JWizmentality]

Don't like this one. Gasol and Zach against our depleted front court. This could get ugly.

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[Youheardme90]

Don't like this one. Gasol and Zach against our depleted front court. This could get ugly.

Sent from my LG-VM696 using Tapatalk 2

Way to play it safe.

[Illmatic12]

Memphis almost lost to Cleveland at home, and the Cavs had Tristan Thompson and Spencer Hawes guarding their interior. They aren't unbeatable. But this is probably one of those games where we'll have to be hot from outside to win.

This time around our boy Calathes can abuse Andre Miller. Wall will be battling it out with Conley Jr on both ends of the court, hopefully he brings some intensity.

[dlts20]

Gortat & Nene matchup well with Memphis. Book also played well last game against them and we have Gooden who we can throw in if need be. Webster got hot at the end of the Sixers game which could be huge for us and I think both Wall & Beal have their career highs against Memphis.

I think if Witt makes the reight decisions then we win. Bottom line is if all is going bad, put a stretch 4 in and let Wall go to work. Zbo & Gasol are far too slow to stop him, especially if Wall's swag is on 10 like I think it will be. Maybe even go with Al alot. Zbo wont want to cover him at the 3pt line which would give Al open 3's and hard drives or open up the lane for Wall. Zack might kill Al but I think Al has a better chance of stopping him then Zbo stopping Wall-Al.

Or stretch the floor with Al and run the p&r all day with Gortat. Either way they shouldnt be able to stop us. Too big & slow and guys like Prince are old. We matchup well if Witt doesnt screw it up

[FAH1223]

Memphis is GREAT defensively with Gasol in the lineup. Just as good as Indiana on that end.

The pick and roll and other cute spacing the floor tricks will be shutdown. Wiz will struggle to score.

The good thing for the Wiz is that the Grizz struggle to score too.

Oh and it's hard to believe it was just a year ago Wall dropped 47 points on this team last March..

[Ruzious]

Will Seraphin play? This probably isn't an ideal team to play Singleton as the backup center/PF, if you know what I'm sayin. If KSera can't play, we'll have to out-quick them and out-3 point shoot them.

[Rafael122]

Any chance the game gets postponed due to snow?

It's suppose to stop snowing around 3. I think they will get the game in, but it'll probably be like 100 people in the crowd.

[hands11]

Will Seraphin play? This probably isn't an ideal team to play Singleton as the backup center/PF, if you know what I'm sayin. If KSera can't play, we'll have to out-quick them and out-3 point shoot them.

I expect he will. Seems this knee thing have been cropping up on him throughout the year but I haven't heard anything specific. Maybe he is taking this emulating Nene's game thing a little to serious.

Anyway, game log just says... sore knee.

Booker has a chronically injuried finger that he reinjures with in the first two minutes of play every game. Rub some Robitussin on it big Kev and get your big butt out there.

[hands11]

Gortat & Nene matchup well with Memphis. Book also played well last game against them and we have Gooden who we can throw in if need be. Webster got hot at the end of the Sixers game which could be huge for us and I think both Wall & Beal have their career highs against Memphis.

I think if Witt makes the reight decisions then we win. Bottom line is if all is going bad, put a stretch 4 in and let Wall go to work. Zbo & Gasol are far too slow to stop him, especially if Wall's swag is on 10 like I think it will be. Maybe even go with Al alot. Zbo wont want to cover him at the 3pt line which would give Al open 3's and hard drives or open up the lane for Wall. Zack might kill Al but I think Al has a better chance of stopping him then Zbo stopping Wall-Al.

Or stretch the floor with Al and run the p&r all day with Gortat. Either way they shouldnt be able to stop us. Too big & slow and guys like Prince are old. We matchup well if Witt doesnt screw it up

[Rafael122]

Sent a tweet to Michael Lee and he responded, both teams and refs are here, so it looks like they'll get the game in.

[bgroban]

Where does the "bo" in Zach Randolph's nickname come from?

[AWIZZINGBULLET]

Where does the "bo" in Zach Randolph's nickname come from?

That was going to be tonight's game trivia question...but you ruined it.

[bgroban]

Where does the "bo" in Zach Randolph's nickname come from?

That was going to be tonight's game trivia question...but you ruined it.

So now that it is ruined, what is the answer?

[AWIZZINGBULLET]

Where does the "bo" in Zach Randolph's nickname come from?

That was going to be tonight's game trivia question...but you ruined it.

So now that it is ruined, what is the answer?

I won't do all the work for you, but it definitely has something to do with a gazebo...

[stevemcqueen1]

Conley's very good, but we should have an advantage at PG and hopefully have a pretty decent advantage at SG and SF.

They've got pretty big advantages at PF and C. Our bench is finding a new identity, and has been thinned out in the front court. They weren't exactly good to begin with either. Their bench has a lot of good players on it having solid seasons. They're a better team overall, and they do their things better than we do ours. But you never know. They were a lot better team than we were last year when we played them and we won. Wall is going to have to give us a huge game but everyone else needs to show up tonight too. Hopefully we can get their bigs in foul trouble early on to neutralize that big advantage they've got. Koufos, Davis, and Johnson are good though.

This is going to be a hard one.

[stevemcqueen1]

This is a different team than the one we saw a couple weeks ago. Although Calathes certainly picked up the slack in Conley's absence.

If John and Ariza keep rolling and Beal plays 80% of what he did last time, we can definitely win.