ESPN Friday Preview: Ja Morant and the red hot Grizzlies take on LeBron James’ Lakers

The Memphis Grizzlies are cruising right now, having won 11 games in a row as they head into Friday night’s ESPN matchup against LeBron James and the Lakers.

Memphis has an MVP candidate (Ja Morant), a Defensive Player of the Year candidate (Jaren Jackson, Jr.) and one of the league’s best shooters (Desmond Bane). The Lakers have, you know, LeBron James.

Los Angeles is 13th in the West and 5 games under .500, so let’s dig in and see what the betting odds tell us about how tonight’s game is going to go.

DraftKings Betting Odds

Memphis Grizzlies (31-13) at Los Angeles Lakers (20-25) at 10:00 p.m. est on ESPN

Lakers +7.5 [ML +245]; O/U 243

Man, the Grizzlies are on a massive roll. They’ve won 11 games in a row, have been the league’s top defense in that span and also the 5th best offensive team during that win streak.

The Lakers are just trying to piece together some sort of a respectable season. The problem for the Lakers, among many, is that they are relying on LeBron James to do things we’ve never seen before in the history of the NBA to just keep them afloat.

It feels like we’re going to see the Grizzlies continue to roll and get the win on Friday. I have a hard time thinking the Lakers can keep up with the Grizzlies on the offensive side of the ball, given the Lakers struggles on offense and the Grizzlies being an elite defensive team, so give me the Grizzlies at -7.5 points.

The Over/Under is a bit tricky. Part of me is feeling like the Grizzlies will clamp down on the Lakers, but with the pace of this game, the fact that the Grizzlies have hit the over in each of their last 8 games and the Lakers have hit the over in 8 of their last 10, I’m going to take the Over at 245.

Yes, that’s a hefty scoring total but the Grizzlies have the pieces to run the score up in a big way.

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