{"id":688284,"date":"2026-03-30T16:50:28","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T16:50:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/688284\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T16:50:28","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T16:50:28","slug":"suns-cant-take-matchup-vs-grizzlies-for-granted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/688284\/","title":{"rendered":"Suns Can’t Take Matchup vs Grizzlies for Granted"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Phoenix Suns embark on the first of a four-game road trip tonight as the Memphis Grizzlies play host to their Monday night showdown (5:00 PM AZ time). <\/p>\n

The Grizzlies (25-49) have won just two of their last 13 games while already being eliminated from play-in contention many moons ago. <\/p>\n

As a result, the play-in bound Suns (41-33) are massive favorites to handle business on the road. <\/p>\n

Preview: Suns vs Grizzlies\"Phoenix<\/p>\n

Mar 28, 2026; Phoenix, Arizona, USA; Phoenix Suns guard Jalen Green (4) against the Utah Jazz in the second half at Mortgage Matchup Center. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images | Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

The Grizzlies have a mountain of an injury report<\/a>, as a whopping 13 players are either listed as out, doubtful or questionable entering Monday. The Suns, meanwhile, are down all of Dillon Brooks, Mark Williams, Amir Coffey and Haywood Highsmith. <\/p>\n

Williams and Brooks should be nearing a return soon, you can read more about that here<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The Grizzlies are bottom ten in the NBA in offensive\/defensive net rating though they do play at the sixth-fastest pace of play in the league. <\/p>\n

The Suns, meanwhile, are bottom five in pace of play \u2014 so tonight should be a nice contrast of play style, though both teams do like to shoot the three-ball at high figures. <\/p>\n

Suns’ Key to Victory<\/p>\n

With Memphis missing so many key contributors, this can’t be overstated nor oversimplified enough: The Suns can’t let the Grizzlies hang around. <\/p>\n

Phoenix is a better team. They’re also much healthier. The Suns win the math game in terms of three-point shooting while they’re nearly identical in rebounding numbers. <\/p>\n

All signs point towards what should be a win \u2014 though how often across an 82-game season do upsets like this happen? <\/p>\n

While the Suns aren’t quite contenders for a top six playoff spot, they can’t afford to fall asleep at the wheel with the Los Angeles Clippers just 2.5 games behind Phoenix for the seventh seed. <\/p>\n

Getting off to a cliche hot start isn’t really the main worry for the Suns, but more so their effort and interest in really grinding out second and third quarters to ensure they’re in strong position to win once the fourth and final quarter arrives. <\/p>\n

That isn’t always a problem under first-year head coach Jordan Ott, though it’s happened through the last few weeks \u2014 enough so to make it a talking point against an inferior Grizzlies squad on the road.<\/p>\n

This is one of those games that doesn’t need a ton of analysis, The Suns are better, there’s no doubts \u2014 they just need to be the ones to prove it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Phoenix Suns embark on the first of a four-game road trip tonight as the Memphis Grizzlies play…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":688285,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3795],"tags":[7,294,293,177,4070,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-688284","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-memphis-grizzlies","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-grizzlies","10":"tag-memphis","11":"tag-memphis-grizzlies","12":"tag-memphisgrizzlies","13":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116319159975516835","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=688284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688284\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/688285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=688284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=688284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=688284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}