I apologize first of all to you, reader, to have to strengthen your mental fortitude to have the mental capacity to withstand the horrors you will certainly witness tonight. These teams have no business facing each other in a late April matchup — they’d probably prefer a 50-point blowout loss against the top teams in the league. The Utah Jazz are on a 10-game losing streak in their Salt Lake City finale, hosting the Memphis Grizzlies, who are currently on a 6-game losing streak.
Here is the real,
raw, unfiltered truth. There are a total of TWENTY-FOUR players listed on both teams’ injury reports combined. The Grizzlies sweep the Jazz out of the park in that department — their side houses 15 players. To put it into perspective, that’s over $128.2M worth of salaries listed as OUT for Memphis. Taylor Hendricks has been sacrificed to the volcano, but Walter Clayton Jr. has the off chance of making his return to the Delta Center. On the optimistic side, Ace Bailey has been cleared to play. Minutes are subject to change based on Will Hardy’s sicko level.
I hate to be your nagging mother, but if the Jazz win, they could lose a 10% chance at a top-four pick. It’s also the same stakes for Memphis; winning tonight would also lose them a 7% chance at a top-four pick. It’s hard to believe that they were, in fact, a play-in team earlier in the season. Of course, that was before Ja Morant’s prescribed treatment by a witch doctor, and the various other legitimate injuries that are scattered in their injury report.
We both know that’d we’d rather be in Utah’s spot than where the Grizzlies are currently, partly in fact because they knew what they needed to do as early as late January.
I have to do my due diligence and talk about at least one person on the Grizzlies who technically counts as a player. The person who’s available that that’s play`ed the most games this season is Jahmai Mashack. The 59th pick out of Tennessee has earned a reputation as a disruptive defensive specialist. He’s also been rocking a black protective face mask due to a broken nose, which honestly just kinda adds to his enforcer energy.
Ace Bailey is here to save the day — when all hope was lost on a potential season ending ‘injury’, he realized the importance of fan appreciation night in the Delta Center finale. There is no doubt on anyone’s mind that this young chap is very pleased to be rocking purple in the mountains. Shall I remind everyone of Cody Williams, who is up to facing any challenge, including the savage Bears in the low-lying, Gulf Plain of Tennessee? Never in my mind did I conceive of Cody being a primary scoring option back in October, but perhaps this was what we all needed to witness.
I must bring this to everyone’s attention, but the Grizzlies are so nefariously evil that the Jazz are favored -4 to win tonight according to Fanduel Sportsbook. Not that you should even consider spending a penny on this collection of basketball players tonight, but just a worrying concern on Utah’s end.
Enjoy the cinema, ladies, gentlemen, and sickos alike.
How to watch:
Who: Utah Jazz (21-59) vs. Memphis Grizzlies (25-55)
When: April 10th, 7:30PM Mountain Time
Where: Delta Center, Salt Lake City
Channel: Peacock, Jazz+, KJZZ
Radio: 97.5/1280 The Zone
