Game Notes: 11/19

My school schedule caught up with me yesterday. But now that my exams are behind me (until December 5th anyway... but Friday exams are perfect since there are only 2 or 3 games on Thursday nights!), I should be good to go for that rest of the season!

Tell you what, just to make it up to you I will write an article on strategic streaming and post it this weekend. How does that sound?

Washington – 87 at Atlanta – 91

Caron Butler finally had a big night, and Antawn Jamison and Deshawn Stevenson followed suit with nice lines of their own (considering the source of each). However, like the majority of the remaining Wizards, Nick Young struggled with his shot. If he starts hitting threes or getting to the line more consistently he will be worth considering for a roster spot. Atlanta played without Josh Smith and Al Horford (no word on how serious Horford’s sprained ankle is, rotoworld says he tested it during warm ups though), and saw four of their starters explode. Joe Johnson’s TO’s and FG% were catastrophic, but he nearly had a triple double, Mike Bibby scored 25 on 12/22 from the field, Marvin Williams put in a sparkling 21-14-4-2-1, and Zaza had 18 rebounds (I wouldn’t pick him up though, as he won’t be relevant for long).

Things to watch: JaVale McGee started at center. He has provided nice standard big numbers recently, so if this move is permanent it could mean good things.

Toronto – 101 at Miami – 95

Jose Calderon returned to a quiet line, but facilitated some awesome performances by other Raptors. Bargnani was on fire and canned 3 threes on his way to 25 points. Anthony Parker was shooting sharp as well, hitting 5 threes on his way to 19. Chris Bosh’ shooting numbers were disappointing but he still managed a double double, and Jermaine O’Neal played 39 minutes for the second time this season and returned a line of 16-17-3-0-1 on 8/17 from the field and 4 TO’s. Michael Beasley picked up 3 early fouls and never really got back into it for Miami. Shawn Marion took advantage and had one of his best lines of the season. Dwyane Wade was the only other guy who met or exceeded expectations, going off for 40-3-11-1-5 with 2 threes and 3 TO’s on 16/30 from the field and 6/9 from the line.

Cleveland – 89 at Detroit – 96

LeBron had a nice overall line, but the bottom fell out of his FG% late in the game, and Mo Williams canned 5 threes on his way to 25 points (the only significant peripheral being 4 TO’s). Other than that the only relevant Cavs were Andy and Z, who both had quietly productive nights. Sheed had a big night, finishing with 21-15-0-0-0 and 5 threes on flawless efficiency numbers. The remaining Pistons starters were decent but struggled with a few cats, as they can be expected to on occasion. Kwame started and played 18 minutes but was terrible. Rodney Stuckey came off the bench for 22 minutes and while he was not as bad as Kwame, was still pretty bad.

Philadelphia – 96 at Minnesota – 102

Iggy had nice volume numbers but truly heinous %’s. Andre Miller put up a strong Tony Paker-ish line. Brand had a solid night ruined by a poor FT% and 4 TO’s. Thad Young kept doing his thing by scoring a decent amount on strong FG%, but doing essentially nothing else, and Sammy put up a respectable line with 11 boards and 4 blocks. Randy Foye started and played 35 minutes, but was out assisted by Sebastian Telfair who played 14 minutes off the bench 6 to 8. Al Jefferson had a somewhat hollow 25-8, but didn’t turn it over all night and did assist Mike Miller’s game sealing three. Miller had a strong line of 10-10-6 with 2 threes and 2 steals… which is actually pretty amazing considering that he only took 7 shots.

Weird line of the night: Craig Smith with 21-0-5. I don’t know if it is weirder that this 250 pound PF had only 1 fewer assist than Foye, or that he had 1 fewer rebound than Telfair… I wouldn’t expect him to repeat any part of this line with any regularity. Smith has a big scoring night from time to time when he gets to the line a lot and knocks them down, when he doesn’t do that he is not a viable fantasy option.

LA Clippers – 108 at Oklahoma City – 88

Chris Kaman absolutely killed tonight, impeccable efficiency, 4 blocks, and an unthinkable 6 assists. Cuttino Mobley gave himself value for a night by adding 7 steals to his hollow 23 points. Baron was 5/15 from the field, but made up for it with 4 steals and a block in addition to his 8 assists. Al Thornton dropped 20-7 with a few threes on a nice 7/12 from the field. Marcus Camby was quiet but decent, and the Clips bench didn’t do anything. The Thunder… wow, where to start. Well Damian Wilkins had 17-5-1-2-1, which was by far their best line, but there is no way to predict the next time he will repeat that since he has been seeing very few minutes all year. Everyone else on OKC was pretty terrible. Hopefully the thin spread minutes were due to blow out and not a new coaching philosophy.

Sacramento – 105 at New Orleans – 96

John Salmons dropped 29 points on a splendid 13/18 from the field; he even added 6 assists just for good measure! Beno turned it over 5 times, but at least now when he has a TO happy night he is putting up useful numbers in the process. Brad Miller had TO issues as well, but lacked assist and FT% numbers to balance it. Spencer Hawes was kind of quiet in 29 minutes off the bench, but still posted a useful line of 9-6-2-0-1 with a three and no TO’s… which is only useful because he has a C, but still… I wouldn’t drop him yet. Chris Paul had a lovely game, and Tyson hit his averages, but other than that all of the Hornets were seriously lacking somewhere. David West only had 1 rebound, Peja just didn’t do much of anything, Rasual Butler started for injured Mo-Pete (expected to be out 2 more games) but didn’t put up fantasy worthy numbers, and their bench didn’t do anything at all.

Things to watch: Donte Green started for the injured Mikki Moore (sprained ankle). He has the ability to pop off a lot of points, but I would be hesitant to pick him up (same goes for Jason Thompson and Spencer Hawes if they were previously FA’s in your league), as Moore’s injury is a short term deal.

*Dallas – 96 at Houston – 86

Don’t you love it when a guy proclaims he is “shutting it down” and then plays two days later? Isn’t that just WACKY!?! Well, of the injured Rockets stars, Yao was the only one not to play. Artest played 43 minutes and while his FG% was stinky, he showed no ill-effects, and overall had a nice line. T-Mac played 29 minutes, and outside of the handful of possessions when he was isolated on Jason Kidd, had serious trouble scoring, or really doing much of anything useful. Chuck Hayes started for Yao and didn’t provide useful numbers. Scola had a strong, but unspectacular game. Skip had a beautiful line, collecting 8 assists on zero turnovers and matching it with nice %’s to finish the game with 16-5-8. Outside of some hot shooting in the fourth quarter, Aaron Brooks didn’t do very much. Josh Howard missed the game with an ankle injury, and was replaced in the starting lineup by James Singleton who has been known to collect tons of boards in short periods of time, but didn’t really do much of anything in 17 minutes tonight. Oddly enough, the bulk of Howard’s minutes didn’t go to Gerald Green, but to Shawne Williams, who exchanged periods of high activity and defensive poise, with periods of offensive malaise and generally poor decision making. Kidd approached a triple double, but had 5 TO’s, Dirk seemed to take pleasure in finding the most difficult awkward looking shots on the floor and taking them but at the end of the night he had a strong line, Jason Terry was on fire for much of the game and scored a season high 31 with 2 threes, and Erick Dampier blocked 9 shots, but 8 of those blocks occurred after the whistle (I love watching him do this, he just gets this ultra-silly sense of accomplishment look on his face).

Injury note: I would be surprised if anyone owns Brandon Bass, but he knocked knees with Artest in the fourth quarter. It was the first time I had ever seen this happen when both players are air born, but Bass was on the floor and looked to be in serious pain for a little while. He returned to play almost immediately, so it’s probably not a big deal.

Denver – 91 at San Antonio – 81

Carmelo struggled from the field and had 5 turnovers, but nearly had a triple double. Chauncey registered 6 TO’s of his own, but outside of that his line was very strong highlighted by 9/9 from the line. K-Mart and Nene both managed to do nice things despite playing slightly shortened minutes due to the blowout (San Antonio caught up when the benches were in the game, but this game ended in the third), while the rest of the Nugget players failed to do anything noteworthy. Duncan had a very impressive line of 12-11-6-0-1 considering he only played 29 minutes, but both of his %’s hurt. George Hill didn’t collect the assists he has been picking up recently, but scored 20 points with the help of 8/8 from the line. The rest of the San Antonio’s roster had their PT significantly effected by the blow out, and other than Hill, Matt Bonner was the only guy to turn the extra opportunity into a positive (everything is relative here, 8-8-2-1-1 is a positive for Bonner).

Milwaukee – 94 at Utah – 105

Bogut stayed out of foul trouble and enjoyed a huge double double with 16-20. Richard Jefferson hit 4 threes on his way to 25 points, but failed to do much of anything else, and none of the other Bucks excelled in more than one cat. Meanwhile, AK47 is back in full swing as his old fantasy self, being 2 assists and 1 block shy of a 5x5. Memo returned, which is a good sign, but he struggled in 20 minutes. Boozer got to 20-11 before leaving in the fourth quarter with a strained quad (no word on how serious the injury is). Ronnie Price, CJ Miles, and Paul Millsap all had lines that were sexy in ways particular to their owner.

Things to watch: It is time to pick up CJ Miles. He is averaging 16ppg over his last 5, and more importantly he was getting plenty of shots and minutes in the couple of game Deron played. If you need 3ptm or points on low TO’s he is your guy.

Chicago – 74 at Portland – 116

This game was essentially over after the first quarter. So much of this game was garbage time there isn’t really any sense in looking at it any closer. Luol Deng missed the game with an injured groin. Greg Oden is having minor foul issues, but kills things so bad while he is in that it doesn’t really matter. In fact, it is actually kind of nice because it gives the Vanilla Gorilla enough time to be a useful fantasy C! I wish Ike Diogu would catch on somewhere and get regular minutes, the guy has strong post moves and good sense around the basket.