On New Year’s Eve, San Antonio Spurs fans held their collective breath as Victor Wembanyama rushed into the locker room after hyperextending his left knee in San Antonio’s 134-132 win over the New York Knicks. It was the second time this season that the big man has been injured and came just two days after Denver Nuggets center and fellow MVP candidate Nikola Jokić went down with the same injury.
But Wembanyama sustained no structural damage, and after missing the last two games, he’s been upgraded to questionable in advance of the Spurs’ road game against the Memphis Grizzlies tonight at 8 p.m. ET. He was a full participant in practice yesterday, so he should be expected to play barring a setback.
Besides Wembanyama, the only other player on San Antonio’s injury report is Devin Vassell, who’s out with an adductor strain. The Grizzlies, per usual, have an extremely long injury list, with Brandon Clarke (calf), Cedric Coward (ankle), Zach Edey (ankle), Ty Jerome (calf), John Konchar (thumb), and Scotty Pippen Jr. (toe) all out. Vince Williams Jr. (knee) and Ja Morant (calf) are questionable. Jerome, Pippen, and Clarke have missed almost the entire season.
The Spurs are 6.5-point favorites at DraftKings Sportsbook (-258 on the Moneyline), with the point total set to 239.5. Memphis is +210 on the Moneyline. Below, I’ll break down tonight’s potential 2-7 playoff preview and offer my prediction.
San Antonio Spurs at Memphis Grizzlies preview, prediction
With or without Wembanyama, San Antonio remains a solid team. The Spurs were actually losing when he checked out of the game, but they went on to out-score the Knicks by nine points after he exited, thanks to Julian Champagnie making a flurry of late-game threes. They took care of business the next game, beating the lottery-bound Indiana Pacers by 10. Stephon Castle is slumping, averaging just 15.0 points, 3.4 turnovers, and 4.2 fouls per game on 36-11-79 shooting splits across his last five games, but as soon as he breaks out of that, San Antonio should be back to contender-level play. After all, it is 16-3 with Luke Kornet as the starting center, which it is likely to go back to tonight if Wembanyama is, as expected, on a minutes restriction.
The Grizzlies won’t be pushovers, even with all of their injuries. Though they’ve lost each of their last four games, each was decided by a single-digit margin, and back-to-back losses at Crypto.com Arena against a solid playoff team in the Los Angeles Lakers is hardly disappointing, especially when the second loss came with Morant sidelined. The upside of Memphis’ injuries is that it has gotten to develop players who otherwise might not get much run in the rotation, and some have emerged as true hidden gems, including shooting guard Cam Spencer, who’s become arguably the league’s best shooter. The Grizzlies have actually been better without Morant or Jaren Jackson Jr. on the floor, a testament to both their depth and to how much the two foundational stars have struggled.
Spurs at Grizzlies pick, best bet
One reason the Spurs have survived Wembanyama’s absences in a way that they couldn’t last season is Kornet. Among the 54 players who have played at least 20 games and guarded at least five shots within six feet per game, opponents have shot the 13th-lowest percentage against Wembanyama. That’s a team-leading mark, but Kornet is right behind him in 17th. Even during Wembanyama’s 12-game absence, San Antonio still allowed a below-average percentage at the rim, and during the six games in which he came off the bench while on his minutes restriction, the Spurs were still an above-average rim-protecting team.
With or without Wembanyama, San Antonio should have an advantage inside, as Memphis simply hasn’t been as good without Edey on the floor to man the middle. That advantage persists on the other side of the ball: the Spurs have been good at getting downhill and the Grizzlies have been poor, and both teams have been merely average at finishing. Memphis might be slightly better at driving if Morant plays — he ranks ninth in drives per game this season — but many of Morant’s drives have ended in floaters, not layups, which are less efficient even though San Antonio has been comparatively worse at defending them.
The Spurs should have a slight edge in the rebounding department, especially if Wembanyama plays at all. While the Grizzlies have been somewhat able to replace Edey’s rim protection, they haven’t been able to replace his rebounding, and they rank just 20th in total rebounding percentage since his injury. The Spurs should also have slight edges in transition on both sides of the ball, and they are both less turnover- and foul-prone than Memphis is, though at least the Grizzlies record more steals. They also operate at a faster pace than San Antonio, which could lead to the error-prone Castle making some mistakes or hamper Wembanyama in transition if his knee isn’t 100%.
With most of the other edges going to the Spurs, Memphis will need to shoot the ball better. That’s an area in which San Antonio has been somewhat vulnerable: during the period in which Wembanyama came off the bench, the Spurs allowed the sixth-most wide-open three-point attempts and got exceptionally fortunate that teams shot the third-lowest percentage. The Grizzlies have been similarly vulnerable to such shots and similarly fortunate that opponents have connected at such a low clip, but that fortune could continue against a San Antonio team with inconsistent shooters, especially with one of its best shooters, Vassell, sidelined. Memphis has also been better at generating wide-open threes than the Spurs have, and while some Grizzlies have probably been lucky to make so many of them (Spencer, for instance, probably won’t continue to hit threes at a rate 11.5 percentage points better than expected), others — like Jaylen Wells and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope — are due for improvement.
All in all, Memphis’ superior ability to generate wide-open looks isn’t enough to make up for San Antonio’s advantages in every other aspect of the game, and most of the Spurs’ numbers weren’t all that different with Wembanyama entirely unavailable. In fact, San Antonio actually gives up fewer uncontested threes with Wembanyama off the floor, in part because Kornet doesn’t have the same level of deterrence. If Wembanyama doesn’t play at all, the Spurs should still have a chance of covering the spread, and if he’s anywhere close to 100%, it should be a virtual guarantee.
