Once again, Luka Dončić and the Los Angeles Lakers have been caught in the cross-hairs of social media discourse. Clips have circulated surrounding Dončić’s sometimes lackadaisical defense (even though every composite metric has graded him as an above-average defender for the second straight season), and given the Lakers’ results, it’s hard to blame any skeptics.
Los Angeles desperately needs a get-right game, and a 10:30 p.m. ET home game against the Memphis Grizzlies, who are still below .500, might be winnable.
The Lakers have a long injury report, with Jarred Vanderbilt (leg) at risk of joining Austin Reaves (calf), Rui Hachimura (calf), Gabe Vincent (back), and Adou Thiero (knee) on the sidelines. The Grizzlies’ injury report is longer: Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (hamstring) and Jaylen Wells (hamstring) are questionable, and Brandon Clarke (calf), Zach Edey (ankle), Ty Jerome (calf), John Konchar (thumb), Scotty Pippen Jr. (toe), and Vince Williams Jr. (knee) are out, though most of their absent players have been out for much of the season regardless.
Los Angeles is a 3.5-point favorite at DraftKings Sportsbook (-175 Moneyline), with the point total set to 240.5. Memphis is +145 on the Moneyline. Below, I’ll break down tonight’s slate-concluding matchup and offer my prediction.
Memphis Grizzlies at Los Angeles Lakers preview, prediction
It would almost be fitting if Wells ended up not being able to play tonight, given that he and Santi Aldama are the only two players who have been active for all 33 of the Grizzlies’ games, and Caldwell-Pope has appeared in 32. Even so, after a 4-11 start to the season, Memphis has kept chugging along, finding plug-and-play ability from forgotten-about role players (such as former Laker Christian Koloko, who averaged 1.2 steals and 1.2 blocks in just 18.6 minutes per game while on a 10-day hardship contract) and hidden gems like Cam Spencer, who’s turned into the best shooter in basketball. The Grizzlies could win a playoff series if Jaren Jackson Jr. and Ja Morant ever get it going offensively: Jackson has had the second-worst offensive season of his career by composite metric LEBRON, and Morant’s efficiency has been woeful.
Los Angeles just isn’t a deep team, which could prove a challenge tonight with at least three rotation players sidelined. Dončić’s defense isn’t perfect, but given that he still leads the league with 33.5 points per game while adding 8.2 rebounds and 8.7 assists per game, it’s hard to say he’s the Lakers’ main issue. LeBron James has arguably been disappointing this season, given his inefficiency and inattentive nature, but relying on a 41-year-old was never going to be a sustainable solution. The issue is with all of the role players: Jake LaRavia and Marcus Smart haven’t shot the ball well, even if they’ve been okay defensively, and neither of Los Angeles’ young players (Dalton Knecht and Bronny James) have demonstrated the capacity to be in the rotation.
Grizzlies at Lakers pick, best bet
If one combined the Lakers’ offense with Memphis’ defense, it would have a solid team. For the season, Los Angeles ranks seventh in offensive rating (though that has dipped to 20th in the last seven games, in which Reaves has only played 37 total minutes) and the Grizzlies rank 13th in defensive rating. The issue is that Memphis struggles to score (23rd in offensive rating for the season) and the Lakers struggle to defend (25th in defensive rating). Recently, though, the Grizzlies’ offense has turned it on, ranking 11th in offensive rating since Edey went down, and Los Angeles has collapsed defensively, posting a mark better than only the Utah Jazz in December. The Lakers have been blitzed by 10.6 points per 100 possessions in 303 minutes with Dončić and James on the court together.
Rim protection isn’t a thing that either of these teams does very well: for the season, Los Angeles has allowed a 71.8% shooting percentage in the restricted area, the second-worst mark in basketball. Memphis (68.8%) isn’t much better, though, paradoxically, it has improved dramatically since losing Edey, one of the game’s premier individual rim protectors. The difference is on the other end of the floor: while neither of these teams does a good job getting downhill, the Lakers have the highest conversion rate from both the restricted area and the non-restricted paint, while the Grizzlies have been dominant from floater range and exceptionally poor at the rim. All in all, Los Angeles has scored more points in the paint, but that, too, has flipped in December. The same can be said for the Lakers’ advantage on the glass.
Los Angeles’ all-around December atrocity can be tied mostly to luck. Last month, opponents shot a completely unsustainable 46.9% on wide-open threes despite the fact that the Lakers allowed the eighth-fewest uncontested attempts, and they also shot a league-best 43.4% on the fourth-fewest catch-and-shoot attempts. Likewise, the fact that Memphis’ defense has stayed afloat even without Edey can be attributed in part to luck: it has allowed the seventh-most uncontested threes in the last nine games and gotten fortunate that opponents have hit them at the third-lowest rate. The Grizzlies have also gotten pretty fortunate with their shooting as of late, with Spencer (68.8% on wide-open threes in his last nine games), Aldama (61.9%), and Morant (54.4%) especially likely to cool down. The fact that Spencer leads the league in three-point percentage over expectation is a testament to both his shooting talent and his good fortune.
Memphis’ occasional propensity to give up high-quality shots might be a saving grace for the Lakers. Despite the second-worst accuracy of his career overall, Dončić has actually been more accurate than expected from deep, because he takes the lowest-quality threes in the league, per the NBA’s Inside the Game stats. Reaves and James also rank in the league’s bottom 10 in expected three-point percentage (of the league’s bottom 10 by shot quality, James is the only one shooting worse than expected). The Grizzlies’ lack of perimeter stoppers could help Dončić manufacture higher-quality looks, especially if Wells sits, though Dončić did score 13 points on four-for-six shooting against him in the teams’ earlier matchup. In that game, Morant also had a very difficult time against Marcus Smart, going just two-for-eight.
With how unfortunate Los Angeles has gotten over the last month and how fortunate Memphis has gotten as of late, it’s likely that luck will flip in the Lakers’ direction in at least one of the back-to-back games that these two teams will play tonight and on Sunday, especially since Smart might be more suited to stop Morant than Wells is to stop Dončić. Los Angeles, even amid its slump, has done a decent job taking care of below-.500 teams, and the Grizzlies have struggled to beat teams at .500 or better. The game will be scrappy and ugly, and Dončić may need to play more than 40 minutes, but the Lakers will pull away late to cover the spread.
