Welcome to the RotoBaller NBA Recap. In this feature, we will highlight a few key fantasy basketball takeaways from the games played during last night's slate. These viewpoints can be both positive and negative and will hopefully help to provide insight into different roster moves you should consider making based on trends and statistical nuggets from around the Association.
Fantasy basketball has a lot of moving pieces with all the different scoring settings that are possible to play under, so I will always do my best to spotlight where players gain or lose value in certain game types. For the sake of simplicity and consistency, every time I mention Fantasy Points in these articles I will be using DraftKings' scoring system, which goes as follows: 1*PTS, 0.5*3PM, 1.25*RBD, 1.5*AST, 2*STL, 2*BLK, -0.5*TO. On top of that, bonus points are awarded for Double-Doubles (+1.5) and Triple-Doubles (+3), only one per player at a time.
Without further ado, let's get right into the latest slate of games from the 2021 season and try to figure out how to take advantage of what we saw transpire.
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Monday, December 13
Golden State barely escapes Indiana winning by two points as we await for Steph's three-point coronation, Nikola Jokic gets another ejection this time against the Wiz Boyz
Spicy game between Warriors and Pacers coming down to the final bunch of seconds when Kevon Looney hit a ridiculous layup to give GSW a lead they were able to hold onto till the final buzzer blared. Steph was his very good self hitting 5 treys for 26 points, 6 boards, 6 dimes, and 1-1 steals and blocks, but that had him short of reaching Ray Allen on the three-point leaderboard. Sorry Knicks, you'll have to endure the feat at the very own Madison Square Garden because there is nothing stopping Chef Curry for cooking himself the 3PT-meal the next time he balls for the GSW.
Jokic, who seemingly has entered a packed-full-of-carbs ejection-based diet gearing up to Christmas Feastivities, got kicked out of yesterday's affair with Washington with 31 minutes of playing time... good enough to see him lead the DKFP leaderboard with 73 fantasy points to the tune of a near-trip-dub reading 28-19-9-3-1 while shooting 64% from the field and 82% from the charity stripe. Can't get much better. Also: Jokic got ejected while not committing a single personal foul on the day. LOL
- Shouts out to Jayson Tatum and Trae Young for getting into the top-3 plays of the day thanks to dropping 42 and 41 pops respectively. Tatum did it baking 7 treys into his tally with a 5-4-3 rest-of-line in 38 minutes while Trae hit 5 long-range shots and paired the scoring with a 4-9-1 himself.
- Top-4 finish for Kristaps Porzingis, who didn't need Luka around to lift Dallas above Charlotte on a Monday. Porzingis put up the most efficient game of the day--other than Jokic's, of course--with a sound 24-13 dub-dub to go with 5 swats on top of that.
- Season-high 23 points for P.J. Tucker, something I'm still finding hard to process. Tucker put up an overall 23-9-5, blocked a shot, and scored five triples on an unreasonable-for-him 15 FGA with not a single freebie attempted. Dripman turned hitman.
- Trey Burke with the most valuable game of the day in DK thanks to an off-the-pine 23 minutes of playing time in which he reached a bulky 22-3-6-1 hitting 4 treys and shooting 64% from the field on a healthy 14-shot diet. No wonder the Mavs defeated the Hornets, I guess.
- Davis Bertans tying PJ Tucker at three-pointers with 5 against Denver to go with a steal and a block, enough to have him as a to-5 play in the ROI department. Another Wiz, Aaron Holiday, was also fantastic even though he just played 15 minutes as he dumped an 18-6-1-1 line on the Nugs.
- Houston decided to have a Y2K party in Atlanta, so the Rockets had both D.J. Augustin and Eric Gordon scoring 22 and 32 points respectively on the Hawks while dropping 6 and 5 triples and shooting 78% and 62% each. Bonkers outing from the two vets.
- Christian Wood with the lowest outcomes among top-salaried/top-rostered players on Monday: only 25 minutes of playing time and a silly 12-5-3-1 while hitting only 30% of his 13 FGA dropped Wood down the top performing players of the slate, and it sucked to watch.
- Tobias Harris and Khris Middleton were horrid. They played the same minutes (25 and 24) and although it is true that Midd left injured, all he did in his time out there was reach a low 4-8-3 while Tobi could only finish at a similarly wrong 12-2-2 with a block. Ugh.
- Jaylen Brown finally got back from injury for Boston and shouldn't have trouble featuring in all games going forward... Middleton with the scare of the day hyperextending his knee and leaving the game early for Milwaukee which says there shouldn't be nightmarish news related to this thing (we'll see)--expect KM to miss time no matter what, though, with a day-to-day tag attached to his forehead at the very minimum.