NBA Play-In Tournament: Mavericks at Grizzlies predictions, preview, how to watch

The Dallas Mavericks and Memphis Grizzlies will meet in a fight for the 8th seed in the Western Conference on Friday night in the final game of the Play-In Tournament. These teams just met in Memphis on Sunday with both teams sitting their top rotation players to avoid major injury, but Dalals will enter this game as the healthier team because of the Grizzlies' last game. The winner goes to the playoffs, the loser goes home.

Dallas handled business on Wednesday night, dominating the Sacramento Kings 120-106. The Kings got beat so badly that they fired their general manager (must be nice), an assistant coach left to be an assistant at Florida State, and players are openly telling the media they have some decisions to make this offseason. Not ideal. Anthony Davis led the team in scoring, but Klay Thompson and Brandon Williams were the difference-makers. Without Kyrie Irving, Williams has stepped up as the point guard with the most juice, and the offense looks entirely different when the ball is in his hands.

Memphis lost to the Golden State Warriors 121-116 on Tuesday night in a game that saw some of the worst end-of-game officiating ever, but with a chance to tie the game with less than ten seconds to go, the Grizzlies couldn't even get the ball in bounds and got called for a five-second violation. Ja Morant also had a nasty rolled ankle in that game that ended up returning to the game with, but that may affect his status on Friday.

The Grizzlies won the season series 3-1 against the Mavericks, and the one Mavs win was a wild one in the NBA Cup Qualifiers where the Grizzlies completely collapsed in the fourth quarter, mostly because of Marcus Smart, who is no longer on the team.