Grizzlies at Mavs GAMEDAY: Memphis Enters With A Chip On Its Shoulder

It's The Memphis Grizzlies at The Dallas Mavericks GAMEDAY As Young Ja Morant's Team Enters With A Chip On Its Shoulder Against a Hot Kristaps Porzingis

DALLAS - The Dallas Mavericks employ one of the hottest scorers in the NBA in Kristaps Porzingis. And the Memphis Grizzlies? They are hot in two different ways.

The Grizzlies, led by kids like Ja Morant, have won 12 of their last 15 games. In the calendar year of 2020, they are third in the NBA in scoring and to top it off are the league's best free-throw-shooting team.

But they are "hot'' in another way as well.

Game Time: 7:30 p.m. CT

Location: American Airlines Center, Dallas

TV/Radio: FSSW, 103.3 FM, Univision, 1270 AM (Spanish)

Records: Mavericks (31-19), Grizzlies (25-25)

Morant is among the Grizzlies who have taken to social media to express their disgust with Andre Iguodala, who is employed by the team but ... well, isn't part of the team. Iggy awaits an escape from Memphis (Iguodala's name pops up a lot in our NBA Trade Deadline Tracker, with Mavs ties) and that doesn't sit well with the young Grizz who are trying to build something there.

And succeeding.

Dallas' present version of "hot'' is embodied by the 7-3 body of Porzingis, who in his back-to-back games on the floor (with a "load-maintenance'' break in between has scored 35 and 38 points. KP without Luka Doncic, expected to miss tonight and maybe two more games after this due to an ankle injury? Porzingis over the course of the year's eight games in that circumstance is averaging 26.4 points, 15.3 rebounds and two blocks.

While Seth Curry and JJ Barea are listed as out tonight, lots of Mavs are picking up the Luka slack; in Monday's big win at Indy, Tim Hardaway Jr. had 25 points and five assists and Dorian Finney-Smith totaled 15 points and 11 rebounds. Additionally, of course, we are on the eve of the NBA Trade Deadline; check our Mavs Tracker throughout the night.

But a comfort zone for KP, which is also a highly-efficient zone? That's the big story here.

“I'm in a good rhythm now and I want to keep it going,” Porzingis said after the Indy game. “I think we're playing pretty good basketball, we're moving the ball, playing aggressive."