Memphis Grizzlies vs Dallas Mavericks

The NBA Cup group stage comes to an end on Tuesday night when the Dallas Mavericks host the Memphis Grizzlies. With a 2-1 record, the Mavs are in second place in West Group C, while the Grizzlies are in fourth place with a 1-2 record. Now let's begin predicting the match!

If Dallas wants to make it to the NBA Cup quarterfinals, they need to win this game and pray the Warriors lose. In contrast, Memphis would need to win and have several other things go their way in order to guarantee a wildcard slot as the top second-place Western club.

Despite Dallas' strong defense, the Mavericks have had trouble inside the arc. Jackson has been a dynamo around the rim, hitting 61.1% of his twos, while Jason Kidd's club is in the bottom half of the league after giving up 28 twos per game.

To make matters worse, the Mavs haven't been the best at grabbing rebounds. They give up the third-most offensive rebounds (12.1) and the 12th-most rebounds per game to opponents (44.1).
When it comes to scoring points versus Dallas, Jackson won't be by alone. After missing eight games in a row at the start of November, Morant has made a strong comeback to the court, hitting four three-pointers in his first three games back.

Ja Morant is the high-profile player taking the court for the Memphis Grizzlies but it is Jaren Jackson Jr. that is topscoring for the team thus far.

The 25-year-old big man is coming on the strength of last season where he showed that he has the ability to be a scoring force on a nightly basis alongside being an NBA Defensive Player of the Year candidate. Jackson averages 22.4 points per game, the most among Memphis players, and tries 15.4 shots per game, hitting 8.0 of them.

Since raw freshman Zach Edey remains sidelined by an ankle ailment, don’t expect Jackson’s carrying burden to diminish in the near future. He has averaged more than 21 points in five of his last six games — going Over 25.5 points AND rebounds in each of those games.

Overall, he has averaged 26 or more points and rebounds in 14 of the 19 games in the season. These are the chances I found out he fulfills; that is 73.7 percent of his games this season, but these odds only suggest a 53.49 percent chance that he will do it Maverick — making this prop a good value bet.

The Mavs are one of the top teams in the West but they’ve been tested with lots of troubles against big men this season. Dallas has actually been leaking the third most points per game to centers in the NBA; 25.34, the sixth most threes, 1.49, not to mention the fact that they are allowing 14.68 rebounds per game to them.

To make this prop even more appealing, Dallas center Dereck Lively is questionable to play tonight with a knee issue. He sat out their last game and given that, Jackson’s matchup is going to become that much more favorable.