For two teams who both underwent major personnel changes — for the Dallas Mavericks, swapping Luka Dončić for Anthony Davis, and for the Memphis Grizzlies, firing head coach Taylor Jenkins — the 2024-25 season is down to one game. When the two teams face off at 10 p.m. ET, the winner will advance to face the Oklahoma City Thunder in the first round of the playoffs, while the loser will end its season in disappointment.
Memphis lost a tight one, 121-116, to the Golden State Warriors on Thursday night in the first round of the SoFi Play-In Tournament, with Ja Morant missing some time mid-game after spraining his ankle. Dallas was more dominant the following night, ousting the Sacramento Kings in a 120-106 display of defensive dominance.
At DraftKings Sportsbook, the Grizzlies are six-point favorites (-270 on the Moneyline), with the point total set to 221. Meanwhile, the Mavericks are +220 on the Moneyline.
Betting Splits
Given the turmoil that both of these teams have undergone this season, they’re relatively hard to predict; Dallas just got somewhat healthy again after welcoming Davis back towards the end of the season, while Morant’s status is in question. This uncertainty manifests itself in the huge Moneyline disparity between the total bets and the handle. While a strong majority of the public believes that Memphis will ultimately book its ticket to the playoffs, all of the big-money bettors have come down squarely on the side of the Mavericks. The X-factor, it seems, is Klay Thompson, who big-money bettors seemingly back to put together another vintage shooting performance against a team that gave up the fifth-most three-point attempts in the league after firing Jenkins.
The public is more evenly-split on the spread, though, with a small majority (61%) predicting Dallas to either win or lose by fewer than six points, as it has in eight of the 10 games that Davis has played with the team. But big-money bettors have backed the Grizzlies to win by more than six points, as they did in 20 of the 50 games that Morant played this season. The spread was largely a toss-up bet for both of these teams this season; Memphis went 42-39-2 against the spread, while Dallas went 39-42-2. Both teams covered the spread during their respective Play-In Tournament games.
Bettors are also backing both teams’ offenses, with a whopping 73% of the public stipulating that the teams will combine for more than 221 points. There’s certainly logic to that thinking; this season, 46 of the Mavericks’ 83 games went over the point total and 47 of the Grizzlies’ games did, including four of Dallas’ last five games and three of Memphis’. Plus, the Grizzlies play at the league’s fastest pace, had the league’s 13th-worst defense after the All-Star break, and are without their best perimeter defender, rookie Jaylen Wells. The Mavericks’ numbers are harder to parse, but they still posted a merely average defense after Davis’ return. A small majority of the handle, though, has gone on the game to go under the total, indicating big-money bettors’ confidence that Dallas’ defensive display against the Kings was sustainable.
Most Popular Player Props
Here are the top five most-bet player props for tonight’s game:
- P.J. Washington 25+ Points + Rebounds + Assists (-170)
- Dereck Lively II First Dunk Scorer (+245)
- Zach Edey Under 12.5 Rebounds (-120)
- Ja Morant 1st Points Scorer (+500)
- Ja Morant MEM Grizzlies 1st Points Scorer (+250)
The public is interested in betting quick hitters for this one, as three of the five player prop bets will almost certainly be decided within the first quarter.
Morant did score both the game’s first points and, by default, Memphis’ first, during the first round of the Play-In, as he nailed a 19-foot pull-up jumper on the team’s first possession. The early bucket was hardly a rarity for him; after the start of March, Morant posted a 34.8% first-quarter usage rate, the second-highest figure in the league, behind only Dončić. Across that span, he scored the game’s first points twice in his 13 games and the Grizzlies’ first points four times, although both times that he opened the game’s scoresheet came in his final three games of the season. Memphis is likely to get the ball first — Edey, who stands seven-foot-four, has won six of his last 10 game-opening tips, including each of his last five — so Morant’s first-points prop is fairly statistically sound. So is Lively’s first dunk prop; he had the opportunity to nail the first dunk in the Play-In, but missed it. He recorded the game’s first dunk in two of the four games in which he played after returning from his ankle fracture, and five of his 12 made field goals since his return have been dunks.
Washington, a critical piece of Mavericks’ 2024 NBA Finals run, has taken on a bigger role in the offense since Kyrie Irving’s season-ending injury, averaging 17.9 points, 6.2 rebounds, and 2.1 assists per game in his final 10 regular-season contests. Across those 10 games, he recorded 25 or more P/R/A five times, including a three-game streak of 25-point games, all of which came without Davis. In total, he topped that total 27 times during the regular season and did so again in the Play-In. After the All-Star break, the Grizzlies conceded the seventh-most points, 12th-most rebounds, and ninth-most assists, and they’ve struggled against wings without the services of Wells.
Edey, meanwhile, had only recorded 13 or more rebounds in a game four times in 60 games prior to the start of April, but since then, he’s seen an uptick in his minutes. After averaging just 20.6 minutes per contest across the first five and a half months of the regular season, he averaged 30.5 in April’s six regular-season games and played 33 against Golden State in the Play-In Tournament. Since he’s gotten the boost to his role, he’s grabbed 13 or more boards in six of his seven games. But there’s some reason for pessimism; in the five games that Davis and Lively have played together, Dallas has allowed just 42.8 rebounds per game, a figure that would’ve ranked eighth in the NBA this season.
