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Posted at 10:00 AM EST. Odds are subject to change.

Memphis +3½ -105 over Oklahoma City

8:00 PM EST. Look at the Oklahoma City injury report and try to keep a straight face while the market lays points with this team on the road. Jalen Williams is out after ankle surgery. Chet Holmgren is out with the knee. Cason Wallace is out after shoulder surgery. Jaylin Williams, Nikola Topic and Thomas Sorber are gone too. What is left is the two time defending MVP, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and a starting five rounded out by Ajay Mitchell, Kenrich Williams, Aday Mara and Isaiah Hartenstein. Shai is averaging 30.1 a game, he has hung back to back 40 pieces on people, and on Monday he took 35 shots, a career high, because there is literally nobody else. One man, however brilliant, is not a basketball team. He is a workload problem with great footwork, and tonight that workload walks into FedExForum against a full, angry, deep Memphis roster, with a home game against Washington waiting for the Thunder tomorrow night. Something has to give, and it will not be the home team.

Memphis is 6 and 2 and scoring 120.5 points a night on 47 percent shooting, and the two losses on that record are a fraud. They lost 135 to 134 in overtime to New Orleans and by four to Indiana, which means a team that opened the season with six straight wins is a couple of bounces from being talked about as unbeaten, and instead it comes home on a two game skid with something to prove. That is the exact energy you want behind a home dog. Cameron Boozer is putting up 16.5 points, 9.8 rebounds and 5.4 assists a night, doing a little of everything at 6 foot 9. Cedric Coward just went for 23 and 9 against Indiana. Jaylen Wells is a menace on the wing, Ty Jerome runs the show, and Zach Edey is a mountain standing in the paint where a thin Thunder frontcourt has to try to score. The Grizzlies are 6 and 2 against the spread this season because the market keeps pricing their name instead of their roster. Their roster is better than Oklahoma City's roster tonight, man for man, everywhere except one jersey.

And that one jersey is the whole ballgame for the favourite. Memphis can spend the night throwing fresh bodies at Gilgeous-Alexander in waves, Wells first, then Coward, then whoever else feels like earning his cheque, because the Grizzlies have the depth to foul, chase and rotate without blinking. Oklahoma City has no second act. Take Shai's 35 shots away even a little, make the Mitchells and Maras of the world beat you in a loud road building in an NBA Cup game that counts double, and the whole Thunder operation wobbles. The home team has the size, the balance, the rest, the building and the grudge. The visitors have one superstar and a prayer.

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