When: 7:30 PM EST; Wednesday, January 14th, 2015
Where: Barclays Center; Brooklyn, NY
TV: YES Network
To say the last few days have been eventful ones for the Brooklyn Nets organization would be a severe understatement.
First, just four minutes into Monday’s night loss to the Houston Rockets, Kevin Garnett initiated a bit of a scuffle with Houston’s Dwight Howard and promptly got ejected for throwing the ball at and headbutting Howard. Dwight, on the other hand, got off with a technical. KG was suspended on Monday for one game, meaning he won’t play tonight.
Then, yesterday, news broke that Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov officially put his 80-percent share of the team up for sale. With the Nets losing both on the court and in the checkbook, the Russian mining tycoon finally did what he was rumored as thinking of doing for years now. He stands to make a ridiculous profit on the $223 million he invested in the team in May 2010.
Meanwhile, Brooklyn actually has a game tonight and it’s against one of the NBA’s best teams, again.
The Memphis Grizzlies, led by sophomore coach Dave Joerger, hold the fourth-best record in the Western Conference and seventh-best in the entire league. They have three players averaging over 16 points a game (Marc Gasol, Mike Conley and Zach Randolph) and have a reinforcement coming in Jeff Green, who Memphis picked up from the Celtics in a three-team deal involving New Orleans. If the Grizzlies were hard to defend before, it’s damn near impossible to do so now.
Probable Lineups
MEM- Mike Conley (PG), Courtney Lee (SG), Tony Allen (SF), Zach Randolph (PF), Marc Gasol (C)
BKN- Jarrett Jack (PG), Bojan Bogdanovic (SG), Joe Johnson (SF), Mason Plumlee (PF), Brook Lopez (C)
Final Thoughts
No Nets-Grizzlies matchup is going to be good for Brooklyn but tonight might be the best possible day for Brooklyn. Memphis is coming off a tough double overtime win over the Suns on Sunday night and also has to work Green into the rotation, who could be making his team debut in this game. Still, a team with former Net legend Vince Carter as its seventh- or eighth-best players should have enough talent to beat a Nets team on a six-game losing streak.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
