Missing
Things to watch: Adam Morrison has somehow, in spite of his pedophilic profile picture on Yahoo!, put together a few nice scoring lines of late. With J-Rich out for a little bit he could be worth a pick up if you need 3’s or points. Especially against
Playing without Mike Dunleavy finally caught up to the Pacers, as they built a huge first quarter league and then saw Thad Young (by himself essentially) take it apart. In addition to the 25-10, Thad added a block and a steal, and only one TO! The rest of the starters were pretty underwhelming save the blocks/steals for Miller, Iggy, and Brand. Marquis Daniels, TJ Ford, and Danny Granger all had nice lines that were flawed in some way or another (by TO’s, FG% or some such). Troy Murphy returned but only played 15 minutes. This moved Jeff Foster to the bench, but Foster still collected a double double and continued to surprise with blocked shots. Foster’s run should be officially over (temporarily at least) in a few games though, once Murphy gets back up to speed.
Samuel Davis Dalembert: What a tosser. He has been awful this week, and tonight it wasn’t even because of foul trouble, simply because he was loafing and playing generally terrible. He isn’t droppable, but wow is he annoying. (ps – if he plays like this much longer he will be droppable)
Joe Johnson put up a great all around line on strong %’s, Marvin Williams had a nice little number going as well until he missed a handful of shots down the stretch, Al Horford was comparatively quiet to his other PF games, and Flip Murray gave strong numbers in relief of foul ridden Mike Bibby. Devin Harris returned tonight, and combined with Vince Carter for 28 trips to the free throw line, and joined Vince once again in approaching a triple double. Brook “Uglier than Robert Swift?” Lopez started, and posted an impressive line of 29-9-2-2-4 on lovely %’s and zero TO’s in 34 minutes. Ryan Anderson had a hot shooting night in 26 minutes off the bench, and Yi did very little in a possibly foul influenced 19 minutes.
NJ Front court: So Lopez and Anderson killed it tonight, Josh Boone missed the game with injury, Sean Williams is rumored to be on his way to the… OH, and Stromile Swift is talking about returning next week! In other words it is business as usual in the Nets front court, and while giving Lopez and Yi all the PT they can handle would make the most sense to me… Yeah, anyone you pick up here is risky. I still can’t figure out why they signed Najera?
I will say Antawn Jamison had a nice line… but wow… this may be the least fantasy conducive game of the year. Miami did fine, but Washington was out of it early because their good players were terrible, then they brought in their terrible players but mixed the PT around so evenly that Oleksiy Pecherov had the second best line on the team. Yuck. Dwyane Wade’s streak of 30+ point games came to an end, but only because he was limited to 30 minutes due to the blow out. Mario Chalmers had his first definitely positive game in awhile, Beasley and Haslem were essentially business as usual, and Shawn Marion returned to post a decent line (considering how he was playing before the injury, and discounting the 4 TO’s, I think we can agree that this line was decent).
This game wasn’t as close as that score may lead you to believe. The Knicks had a 24 point lead at half time and seemed to just nurse it for the majority of the second half. Jeff Green had an AWFUL first half, missing all 8 of his shots, but bounced back in the second to finish with a decent line of 16-8-4-2-0, if he could pick up his FG% he would be an awesome PF option (he is already a pretty good one considering draft position etc.). Kevin Durant continued to do what he has been doing… ie score inefficiently and not much else. Earl Watson had another quiet but useful line, and Robert Swift started and must have terrified anyone who attempted to box him out because he finished the game with 13 boards. The real story for OKC though, is Russell Westbrook. Posting 19-10-6-1-1 with a three, on nice %’s and 3 TO’s, he had what is easily his best game of the season… But it did come primarily against NYC’s bench. Crawford and Z-Bo continued to slay for the Knicks, Q continued to do nothing in substantial PT, and Duhon repeated what is beginning to look like his regular line. Nate Robinson had a strong game off the bench, and D-Lee was mediocre. Wilson Chandler had a bit of a down night, but nothing to scoff at (why do the Knicks have so many fantasy relevant players???)
Well… CP3 had what some may call his worst line of the season, but if 17-6-9-4-0 with zero threes and zero TO’s, on 4/12FG and 9/9FT is the worst game he has this year, I think I can live with that. The real story in terms of worst in Nola is the rest of their starting line up. West had nice %’s but really didn’t do anything else, Peja and Tyson were shadows of their expected selves, and Mo-Pete… well I guess Mo-Pete did about what is expected from him. The only line that really sticks out on Portland’s side is Oden’s 11-11 +4 blocks, I don’t know if this will make ESPN finally shut up about him and how “OMG Portland totally sucks without him”, or if it will just feed the fire, but whatever the case, good for him. Roy and Aldridge were good but unspectacular. Rudy had a down night, being inconsistent as most bench players are… Extending that theme further, Sergio Rodriguez had 7 assists (but I would not advise picking him up).
A guy of note: He is probably long gone in your league (he has even owned in my public league!), so this is probably worthless advice… but check and see if James Posey is an FA. He has been canning 2+ threes with much regularity, and unless you are in a league with <10>
Mbama started again, pairing a massive double double (19-17) with an ugly FG% (6/16). That FG% has NOTHING on Richard Jefferson’s 8/26 doozie though (seriously man, STOP SHOOTING), Sessions and Ridnour each put up nice lines, and Bogut competed with Jefferson for “ugliest double double of the night” by registering 7 TO’s (before fouling out in the fourth). OJ Mayo is the Grizzlies best player. I did not think I would be saying that… ever? But the disciplined shot selection (or just the ability to make awful shots) has put him on a level that I am afraid Rudy Gay not only will never reach, but whose existence he is not even aware of. Marc Gasol had a nice line, Mike Conley is beginning to show signs of life, and Hakim Warrick was decent off the bench, but everyone else on
Injury Note: Charlie V missed this game with a hamstring injury. In limited searching I could not find anything regarding the severity, but rotoworld is guessing “day-to-day”. Hopefully Charlie uses a different doctor than Michael Redd. By which I mean, hopefully Charlie doesn’t make regular visits to a gynecologist.
Billups and Melo each had nice games. Nene continued to slaughter hustle stats by collecting 5 steals, and K-Mart did much of the same but to a lesser degree and with damaged efficiency. Ray Allen had a very nice game, Pierce and KG were decent, and Rondo rocked the house with 7 steals, 7 assists and 2 points (!!!). Eddie House had a nice line off the bench and seems to have taken over Tony Allen’s sixth man role.
Things to watch: Anthony Carter and Renaldo Balkman each logged more PT than either JR Smith or Linas Kleiza, and each by a wide margin (~28 min vs ~18 min). I don’t know if this is going to turn into a regular thing, with the Nuggets slowing things down and paying a little more attention to defense with AI out of town, or if Georgie just wants to piss off Smith and Kleiza (I mean Carter… sure, he’s a PG, but Balkman is only good at running and jumping man). I think I am the only person who still owns Kleiza, but if this continues, JR Smith will definitely be a guy who you want to look at replacing, as his production will be way inconsistent (which brings tears to my eyes after how strong his start to the season was).
The Mavs suck. That is all there is to it. Dirk got 4 boards in the first 4 minutes of the first quarter and did not get another one until the last 3 minutes of the game. They should have won this game, they just turned it over half a dozen times down the stretch. It really seems like they are just not in shape to play the style they are trying to play in. It works great for a quarter or two, but by the time the fourth quarter rolls around their legs are dead, they can’t score, they settle for awful shots and miss all of them, they get lazy on defense (and even more so on the defensive glass)… just ugly. Josh had a decent game, Dirk was ok in the scoring cats, Jason Terry missed a lot of shots, and Jason Kidd had his worst line of the season. Dwight was held in check for most of the game, Turkey Glue lost his bet to Okafor by fouling out in 27 minutes (3 more than it took Okafor), Jameer scored 21 in about the least helpful way possible, Rashard proved how inept the Mavs defense is by somehow getting to the line 10 times (ie more than last four games combined), and Pietrus turned in a gem of a game hitting 5 threes on his way to 20-9 with lovely %’s.
Lineup note: Gerald Green started tonight, and Jason Terry returned to the bench. If I were coaching the Mavs, I would stick with this lineup as it covers for some of the defensive issues without having to play the abysmal Antione Wright… But then again, if I were running the Mavs I would have NEVER traded Devin Harris. Kidd is fun to watch, but this team is horrendous. They should trade Dirk to
Aaron Brooks started for suspended Rafer Alston and gave an underwhelming 14-8-3-1 with 2 threes on 6/17 from the field in 40 minutes. T-Mac continues his campaign to be the most popular player who gets benched with some regularity by chucking 12 bricks (2 of which somehow made it in) in 24 minutes. No report of injury… perhaps he is embarrassed by how Shaq totally creamed him the other night, and was afraid some of that mojo had rubbed off on Matt Bonner? Ron Artest and
Decimated by suspensions, and death, the Suns line up was a shell of its usual self tonight. Raja
Kwame Brown started again and posted a friggin double double. EAT THAT LAKERS! I bet you regret trading him for Pau Gasol now!!!! Rasheed had a huge game, and all of the other Piston starters followed suit, all excelling in the categories we love them for. The most significant stat on the Pistons bench was Amir’s DNP-CD.
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