New Orleans Pelicans vs Memphis Grizzlies, NBA Picks

This projection and current market action are supplementary and do not influence the final qualitative pick and analysis of today's game.

The Pelicans carry the stronger individual scoring threat into this matchup, with Trey Murphy III holding a meaningful edge over Jerami Grant in scoring volume, floor efficiency, and overall offensive footprint. Memphis is without both of their primary big men in the 2025-26 season, a more significant availability hit than the single frontcourt absence New Orleans is managing, and that kind of frontcourt depth loss affects defensive rotations and rebounding in ways that compound over four quarters. The Pelicans also bring genuine defensive disruption to a Grizzlies offense that already struggles to take care of the ball, ranking in the top third of the league in both steals and blocks, which creates a direct collision between New Orleans's clearest strength and Memphis's most exploitable weakness. The Pelicans hold a modest but real defensive edge over the Grizzlies in the 2025-26 season and take care of the ball reasonably well against a Memphis team that gives it away more than most. The strongest counterargument here is Memphis's recent form, having strung together wins against several opponents while New Orleans has dropped each of its last several outings without interruption, and that momentum gap is genuine. But form built against other opponents does not patch a frontcourt stripped of both primary bigs, and the structural advantages in scoring hierarchy, defensive disruption, and availability that the Pelicans carry into FedExForum are the kind of edges that hold up when the matchup is actually played. The Pelicans enter as the marginally more complete team where it counts on the floor.

Both teams carry meaningful defensive vulnerabilities in the 2025-26 season, and neither unit is equipped to consistently clamp down on opposing offenses over a full game. The Grizzlies rank near the bottom in defensive rebounding, which hands opposing offenses extra opportunities and drives up possessions and second-chance points in a way that directly inflates scoring. Memphis's offense moves the ball well, ranking inside the top third of the league in assists, and their solid free-throw line rate and conversion add another reliable scoring layer even when shots are not falling from the field. The Pelicans are a middle-of-the-pack scoring unit in the 2025-26 season, but Murphy's efficiency compounds across a full game, and New Orleans will find additional opportunities when their defensive disruption forces Memphis turnovers and converts them into transition chances. With both frontcourts thinned by injury, the paint protection and rebounding presence that typically keeps scores lower are diminished on both ends of the floor. The strongest counterargument is that Memphis shoots among the worst in the league from the field in the 2025-26 season, which puts a genuine ceiling on how efficiently they can convert all that ball movement and free-throw opportunity into points. But poor shooting efficiency alongside strong assist numbers and solid free-throw generation still produces plenty of scoring, and when layered on top of a soft Grizzlies defense and a New Orleans offense that takes care of the ball and gets Murphy touches efficiently, the conditions point toward a higher-scoring game than a lower one.