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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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Saturday, February 27
Dallas and Cleveland combine to pull off a couple of East-favorite upsets by defeating Brooklyn and Philadelphia respectively
As much as the Dallas Mavericks enjoyed Kristaps Porzingis' comeback to the lineup yesterday, Brooklyn missed Kyrie Irving (rest) and Kevin Durant (hamstring). Without two of their three stars available, the Nets were always going to have a hard time facing a Luka-KP Mavs pairing, and that was precisely what happened with Dallas demolishing the Nets. Luka Doncic was the better play reaching 49 FP to the tune of a 27-6-7-2 stuffed line while Porzingis was eased in (26 minutes) and finished with an 18-4-2-1-3 all-across-the-board effort.
When it came to Philly, things were a little bit more worrying (to an extent) as the lowly Cavs sent the game to OT and then proceeded to get the W from the Sixers hands. Embiid led yesterday's slate in FP with 70 (!) thanks to a sublime 42-13-6-1-2 dub-dub shooting 59% from the floor and hitting 14-of-16 freebies, but not even that was enough to defeat Cleveland. The Sexland pairing combined for 53 pops and 80 FP, and Ben Simmons hit his second three-pointer of the season on a pull-up J a couple of seconds from the final buzzer.
- Contrasting tale that of Embiid and Jokic yesterday. Embiid got his 70 FP in 40 minutes and a massive 36% usage rate, while Jokic finished with 57 FP in just 30 minutes and a measly 16% usage rate. The Joker put up a trip-dub reading 19-11-13 while Jamal Murray "struggled" once more with just 35 FP and a 26-2-5 line.
- James Harden, the lone Big-3 Net available yesterday, logged himself a 40% usage rate, played 33 minutes, and did it all with a 29-7-6 performance that was also horrid on the TO department as The Beard lost 6 (!) possessions thus cutting down some of his upside.
- Davis Bertans has got it right of late and although he's nothing remotely close to a daily valuable play, he was one yesterday. Bertans came off the bench for the Wiz, dropped 19 pops (including 5 treys and a couple of freebies), and also contributed 4 boards and 2 steals. Not bad, as he did so in just 21 minutes for a 1.45 FP/min production--the best among reserves on Saturday.
- Ridiculously bad game by Seth Curry for the Sixers. The line was an awful 4-2-2-1... in 39 minutes of playing time starting at SG! Curry shot 13 rocks and scored just one of those shots (a triple) which he paired with one free throw on the whole night. Horrific performance on a 23% usage rate that Philly would have used much better on their losing night.
- Nerlens Noel shared the frontcourt with Julius Randle yesterday and while the Knicks can't complain (they ousted the Pacers 110-107), the truth is that Noel plain sucked. He logged 41 (!!!) minutes and even then all he could do was throw his body around the court. His 6% usage rate tells you all you need to know, while his 8-7-1-1-2 line was closer to those of reserve/role players than a 40+ minute starter...
- Michael Porter Jr. had a brain fart two games ago, but he made up for that gaffe yesterday with a neat 84 true shooting percentage game that was only bested by Jokic among players with 10+ FGA. MPJ was really efficient putting up 1.14 FP/min in 28 ticks of the clock and finishing 20-10 with 5 treys but no contribs in any other cat.
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