The Grizzlies host Southwest Division rival the Dallas Mavericks tonight at FedExForum. Barring an unforeseen babysitter mishap, I’ll be courtside and tweeting live from Beyond the Arc’s new Twitter feed — @FlyerGrizBlog. Until then, three things I’m thinking about in advance of tonight’s game:
1. Dirk vs. Z-Bo:Tonight’s game will feature a battle between two of the NBA’s best and most sui generis power forwards. Dallas’ Dirk Nowitzki is perhaps the sweetest-shooting seven-footer the world has ever known, and feasts on mid-range jumpers. The Grizzlies’ Zach Randolph is a floor-bound 6’8″ beast that does his damage on the inside with relentless second-effort rebounding. Regardless of the game outcome, basketball fans should enjoy watching these two go at each other.
The Grizzlies didn’t have Randolph when they won 91-90 at Dallas on October 29th, but Randolph has quickly gotten into a groove in his three games back, exploding for a 23-20 night against Phoenix on Monday. And Randolph was above his season averages in four games versus Dirk and Dallas last season: 23-14-3 on 50% shooting. He should be effective tonight will be helped somewhat by Nowitzki’s increasingly removal of three-point shooting from his repertoire (Dirk’s attempted only four three-pointers in six games.) Z-Bo doesn’t like to guard out to the three-point line.
As for Nowitzki, he’s on his way to yet another MVP-worthy season, currently fifth in the league in scoring at 25.7 points per game and shooting 58% from the floor. He will have little problem shooting right over the smaller Randolph. Could be quite a battle.
