Gameday: Raptors vs. Grizzlies, Aug. 9

For a lot of Raptors fans, the Grizzlies occupy a special place in their hearts. Time to bury those warm feeling deep down, because it’s game time!

Affectionately referred to as ‘Raptors West’ the Memphis Grizzlies have been one of the best stories of this NBA season, and have done so largely on the back of performances they didn’t expect to come so soon and so frequently from the likes of Dillon Brooks, Ja Morant, Brandon Clarke, and De’Anthony Melton. Carry over from last year with Jonas Valanciunas and Jaren Jackson Jr. was as important as ever. And even though Jackson Jr. was fairly mediocre on the defensive end this year, the sheer talent of his offensive game brought major value to the Grizzlies. It’s also worth pointing out that Valanciunas has a real claim to “best player” on the Grizzlies this season as he brought that same uber-efficient offensive punch that Raptors fans know him for, and he was a major rim-deterrent defensively. Nice to see him thriving. There’s other important players, but altogether a very enjoyable team – that the Raptors are looking to beat.

We haven’t seen these two teams square up for some time. Not since January 19th, 2019, actually. Under normal circumstances, we likely would have seen ‘JV’ return to Toronto and receiving a lot of love and adoration from fans and former teammates, alike. Now, a gritty matchup in the NBA bubble where the Grizzlies are fighting tooth and nail for their spot in the Western Conference playoffs.

With ‘JJJ’ out because of a torn meniscus, the Grizzlies are a little bit shorthanded. Typically, I would say the front-court matchup would be the number one thing to look for, but factoring the injuries into it leaves me looking at the backcourts. Fred VanVleet has shown a terrific run of form in the seeding games, and while Lowry’s traditional box score numbers have been more up and down he’s still been good. Those two will have to put the clamps on Morant and Brooks, two of the Grizzlies biggest creators. Morant representing the Grizzlies ceiling with his superstar stretches of play, and Brooks consistently lifting the floor of their offense by providing punch (even if it’s not efficient) on a team that has a lot of players, who at times, seem reluctant to score. The creation might be a bit of a struggle, especially given the injuries of ‘JJJ’ and Tyus Jones.

The Raptors hard-doubling and blitzing oftentimes puts non-shooting or seldom-shooting players in a position to hoist up a lot of 3-pointers, and the Grizzlies look like a team that has a roster construction that is vulnerable to that. Anthony Tolliver is one of the players on the Grizzlies who is well equipped to punish the Raptors, but he’s been failing them lately with the other facets of his game. It should be interesting what kind of run he gets in this one.

The matchup that will receive a lot of eyeballs though, is the Center matchup between Marc Gasol and Valanciunas. The two players who were traded for each other. Gasol possesses both the offensive and defensive attributes to give Valanciunas fits on both ends of the floor, but a motivated and well deployed ‘JV’ is a lot to handle for any team, so we’ll see.

All in all, the Raptors are the superior team and a stinker vs. the Celtics doesn’t mean that they’re suddenly vulnerable to any team in the NBA. The Grizzlies have more motivation than most, but the Raptors are still one of the NBA’s best and will ideally rain on the Grizzlies playoff parade.

Here’s Es with the three points: