Put Your Wands Up In The Air

The Clippers were able to eke out a win earlier to even the series at 2-2. I am loving this series! The Thunder are still favoured to win a best-of-three series versus the Clippers, and I don't mind this one going seven games.

The Wizards were not fortunate however, as they lost earlier and are facing elimination in Indiana in Game 5. So our Tuesday pick must be a Wizard. Here are your options:

Bradley Beal. He is the hottest pick for Tuesday. He did fine in Game 4 as he managed to shake off Paul George's shackles. He should do just fine in Game 5, and he gets my pick.


John Wall. Two eyes or one, there's no question he has to work harder in Game 5. While he won't be able to up his scoring, look for him to keep his assists around the 10 mark.

Trevor Ariza. He is the second most reliable in that roster, and this veteran knows how much is needed to try to come back from this series.

Nene and Marcin Gortat are good picks, but their PRA fluctuates. If you still have at least two of good Clippers (Blake Griffin, Chris Paul, DeAndre Jordan), then it is better to pick a Clipper. If you only have one of these three left, you may pick Nene.

Good luck with your picks!

Comments

  1. John Wall for me. It's between Ariza and Wall, and both are pretty good options. I'm choosing Wall as more of a legacy pick. He was their top guy during the season and I'd find it strange not picking him after averaging 32 PRA in the season. This should hopefully be the first of many John Wall selections in DTTF, and hopefully a good one too!

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    1. Hope you get him in a better PRA than what he gave me.

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    2. Nah, you totally want Wall to crash and burn on all of us, while Beal goes into beast mode. I'm now at 730 points, and if I'm not mistakes you are at 728. The competition between all of us is going to start to intensify soon, especially now that the pretenders who have already picked LeBron have fallen out of it.

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    3. Haaaaaaa I love it. Tangent is keeping up with you Taong. ...........The competition is heating up!!! lol
      ....
      With CP3's 38PRA I'm sitting at 763
      ..
      I'm looking to go with D. Williams Monday then Beal on Tuesday. I'm cool if Beal goes into beast mode haha

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    4. Haha! How about your Wall getting 35 PRA, and my Beal getting 38 PRA? Okay, deal!

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    5. imawake, don't falter. I WILL catch you. Hehe!

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    6. Deal. I'd be pretty pumped with a 35. I'm expecting closer to 25. I've had a monstrous round 2 so far after a very mediocre round 1, so hopefully that continues now that I'm on option #2 and #3 on the teams who I think are going down. Really hoping the Blazers make it to game 5 so I can pick either Matthews or Lopez.

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  2. Ah man, I'm seriously struggling this year! Taken a couple of risks and they just haven’t worked out. Went with CP3 last night and while he got 38 which is decent, Clippers won when I need them to lose! Players used:

    Mia: (none)
    Nets: (JJ, DWill)
    Wizz: (Beal)
    Pacers: (West, PG, Lance)

    OKC: (KD)
    LAC: (CP3, BG)
    Spurs: (none)
    Blazers: (Lillard)

    Obvious pick for tonight is Aldridge. Need a 40+ showing from him at the very least. But my picks after that have me lost, so I need some advice! John Wall or Trevor Ariza are my Tuesday options, followed by Nic Batum (if Blazers don’t get swept) or one of my remaining Nets, probably Paul Pierce. If the Clippers go 3-2 up then it has to be Westbrook, but then I’m screwed with no Clippers for the finals! So I need Blazers to win tonight so I can use Batum on Weds, and I need OKC to win Game 5 and 6!

    Thoughts guys? Am sitting on 740 points… With LA hopefully in beast mode tonight!


    Ali E

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    1. Don't worry about having no Clippers in the next rounds. Even of they win this series, you can just pick Spurs next round, and then Heat players in the Finals. The way it's going, it still is Thunder's series.

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    2. No Clippers for the Finals is not true if you've picked Blake Griffin and Chris Paul. You still have JJ Reddick, Jamaal Crawford, DeAndre Jordan, and Matt Barnes who would make solid selections. You have very limited Pacers for the next round, and that is where it might really hurt.

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  3. Wall ahead of Ariza?

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    1. It's a tough choice. I'd pick Wall.

      Let's see what the others think. I'm sure some will like Ariza's fight.

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    2. I like Ariza better at home, and to be quite honest Wall has been a huge disappointment in this series. Of course there is always Marcin Gortat, who had a great first game in this series, but has since disappeared, becoming the next Hibbert.
      I would definitely try to completely avoid Gortat, and maybe even Wall, if you have other options to go to.

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  4. At least the basketball gods gave us some leeway in having a 3-1 series. If not, I might be going with another Clipper. As it stands, I have already selected:

    MIA, SA, OKC - none
    BKN - Joe, Deron
    IND - PG, Lance
    WSH - Wall, Ariza
    LAC - Griffin
    POR - Lillard, Matthews

    For tomorrow, its going to be Aldridge. The day after that, im going with Beal. Hoping for a Blazer win tomorrow. I know that most managers already picked Lillard and Aldridge and will be going with Batum tomorrow. IF Portland wins, I will still get a chance to go with Batum while other managers might go with a Nets player (Pierce maybe?) or stick with a Blazer (Matthews, Lopez). The longer the series go, there is a chance for me to catch up because of those managers that selected the stars early in the round

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    1. If people have picked 3 Blazers (like myself) then they probably have only picked 1 Net, so not Pierce but one of DWill or Joe, unless they used a Net in the first round.

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  5. Alright I'm furious and Taong I'm sure you know why:
    The Wizards were up by 17 at halftime on the way to tying up that series with the Pacers. Now I see the unbelievable has happened, the Wizards collapse not only did they actually let the Pacers reduce that 17 point lead to 1 after the 3rd quarter, but they got it back to 9 (looked in the play by play) with the most recent being 85-76, they got outscored 19-7 in the last 6 minutes and did not make a field goal in the last 4½ minutes. This was the 2nd game in a row that they were outscored by at least 20 in the 2nd half 57-37 in this game after being outscored 51-30 after halftime in G3. They have made the WORST NBA #1 seed of all time look great losing 3 (going on 4) straight and looking much worse than the Hawks did who at least took it to 7 while this is a lousy 5 game showing. Even though I gave up on the Wizards after losing by 22 in G3, I had to use CP yesterday and he did even better than BG (38-36PRA) which is great. The Clippers also came back from the depths ti win assuring I would take a Wizard in G5 but now with the most recent disgrace by a DC team I'm probably only going to use 1 of them.

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    1. I can understand your frustration with the Wizards.

      For me when the Wizards' run ends, I'll be happy for them. A few years ago I was in DC for Blackhat, me and my colleagues went to a sports bar there. Despite the Wiz' losing record then, I was a fan of the pairing of Gilbert Arenas and Caron Butler. So there I was, an outsider itching to strike up a conversation re: the Wizards. So I was like, "so how about 'em Wizards?" to the bartender. And he was like, "yeah... they're pretty bad..".

      They've come a long way since then and they are lucky to have a young good core in Wall and Beal. Beating the Bulls is a big achievement that DC can be proud of.

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  6. What have we learned: (series updates)

    Portland can't beat the Spurs. I thought they would do better at home, but they still lost. They may win tonight, but will get annihilated in San Antonio. So pick Blazers players now. Personally I am hoping they win tonight, so I can at least get 2 Blazers players in before elimination.

    Washington, after tossing away both home games, are completely finished. Feel free to pick Washington players ASAP. Indiana will move up, unfortunate since I decimated the Pacers roster already. So I am hardly thrilled with the Wizards absolute collapse, but such is life.

    OKC/Clippers has at least two games left, and Miami most likely will still win their series, but they better try a whole lot better than what they did in their last game, or they could be the next Wizards, although I still have a tough time believing that, and the Heat still have home court, and normally that is huge in the NBA playoffs.

    Blake Griffin (36 PRA) was okay, but 10 PRA less than his best performance so far (46 PRA), so that was disappointing. Also not thrilled with the Clippers winning after using Blake, but still have Chris Paul to use later, so not a problem yet unless the Clippers take out OKC. That would be a problem then.

    Going with Nick Batum tonight @ home for Portland, hoping for a big game from him.

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    1. Good stuff Daytona!

      I have faith in Miami, even though I am rooting for Brooklyn. Heat will advance

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  7. Biggest nightmare DTTF scenario:

    An NBA final involving the OKC Thunder vs. the Indiana Pacers. There won't be 6 decent players to pick from that mess.

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    1. Dont worry, wont happen. Heat Spurs, save em players

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    2. Taong, when you say "wont happen" you mean it will probably be OKC Thunder vs Miami then? THUNDER UP !!!! lol

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    3. That was my finals pick at the start of the playoffs. I would love watching that finals, even if it would be tough for DTTF. It would make it fun though, imagine everyone in the pool scrounging the bargain bin for whatever they can get. Fun times.

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    4. I was just giving Taong a hard time about my Thunder lol

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  8. For tonight I am going with Batum, simply because he is the best player left for me from Portland. If somehow you have liliard or Aldridge, it's a no brainer you have to pick them.
    For tomorrow Tuesday I have Bradley Beal because that's an elimination game for Wizards, and might not be a game five back. I have picked John Wall and Ariza already so that's an easy decision for me. If people have choice between Wall or Ariza, I will slightly lean toward Ariza just because of experience, but both players PRAs are close, so just follow your gut. I am saving Blake Griffin for game 6 in LA, so I won't pick him Tuesday. If somehow Clippers win game 5, I am picking Kevin Durant in game 6. I hope that doesn't happen. I am predicting a rematch of SA-Miami Final so save all spurs and heat if you can. James, Wade, Bosh, Duncan, Parker, Leonard. that's 6 players already, and if it goes 7 Ginobili. As an NBA fan, I want a rematch, Spurs have some unfinished business from last year, they were very close to the championship.
    A

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    1. Good advise, A!

      I want a rematch too. I am picking Spurs to win if they do meet again.

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    2. I've even considered using L. James before the finals and simply using ALL of the SAS in the finals. I'm not high on Wade or Bosh because of their low PRA's....
      .....Um, not that OKC won't make it .. was just a thought :)

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    3. If you save James, Wade, Bosh, Duncan, Parker, Leonard and Ginobili for the finals, who the heck are you going to pick in the third round? Last time I checked most people are down 1, 2, or even 3 Pacers. I have picked only Paul George and I realize I'm going to need to use some Heat in Round 3 along with my remaining Pacers.

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    4. I still have Stephenson and West.... Or we could use Wade and Bosh early and save others.... lol

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    5. Going to be interesting for sure !!!!

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  9. Well 38 from CP3 was great, problem is OKC lost that game somehow, Wizards aswell did not help us at all, to be honest they've choked big time, they should beat this Pacer team and to make it worse they've somehow played Hibbert into form.

    Anyway today I'm using LMA, he'll score big no doubt the question is how many. Hope Blazers win they're better then they have shown and I have a soft spot for them so I don't want them to get swept. Also I just want a chance to pick Batum/Mathews... Yes I'm Greedy !

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  10. The worst that can happen is your player getting into foul trouble and riding the bench :(

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    1. Or a bench player that you never considered (for example Will Barton 25 PRA), being one of the top 5 PRA scores of the night. Doesn't say much about the starters for these teams considering the guy off the bench is usually getting far fewer minutes.

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  11. I took Joe Johnson, I figured he's the only consistent Net and at 4% looks like a steal. He's only got 11 PRA at half so I need hi, to heat up in the 2nd half.

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    1. Sucks for both of us.... D williams didn't have much better than that hat half.... and the foul trouble had him on the bench..
      ......OT PRA baby lol

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    2. We got some bad luck with JJ injuring his thumb in the 3rd quarter, he came back in the 4th but was held to 4 in that quarter finishing with 23PRA which to my despise was below D Will and Paul Pierce. Speaking of those 2 I'm leaning PP, if Portland wins Wesley Matthews and Robin Lopez become options but with the blowout fear I'm most likely going with a Net.

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  12. D. Williams has the second highest PRA of the first game under the KING(55) with 26..........C'mon !!!
    ...
    All you guys in the second game, break a leg. Please lol

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    1. LeBron got 57, more than D Will and PP combined (51), the next 2 highest.

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    2. my bad yes 57.... I'm just so glad Dwill did anything....lol

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  13. Surely not all three highest percentage players on the same team can score higher than D Williams 26pra.....
    ........So, that being said, who will fail? :) hahahaha

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    1. Wow.... Looks like it might be Aldridge ..
      ..... I got one of them woohooooooooooooooo :)

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    2. Not only that but D williams 26 out did ALL the SAS players...... Amazing...
      Duncan 23
      Leonard 21
      Parker 15 and
      Ginobili 6 WOW !!!

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  14. Hey guys, so John Wall or Trevor Ariza tomorrow? Can you give me reasons why because im honestly not sure lol. In my opinion, Wall is like the bigger name and the leader, but trevor ariza is like the more consistent performer pra wise and effort and attitude wise on the court.

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    1. I'm going with Ariza cause Wall is invisible on the road, here's hoping for the Wiz to force a G6 so I can take Wall too.

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    2. huh? Im talking about wall or ariza lol not aldridge or whatever your talking about

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    3. Sorry Acee I replied on the wrong post lol Also I agree with your opinion about the two... At the beginning of the playoffs I would have told you to take Wall.... but he has fallen off lately and Ariza has picked it up..... Still though kind of a toss up, because players bounce back AND fall off from game to game........ That is really a tough choice. That being said what do you think about simply going against the crowd and pick the one who is owned by the lowest percentage and give yourself a chance to get a higher PRA than them... :)

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    4. Giving yourself a chance to get a higher PRA than the higher percentage of the DTTF crowd :)

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    5. I'd take Wall over Ariza. But I will not be against an Ariza pick either.

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  15. F !!!!!!!!!!! aldridge... REALLYYYY. of all teh games to drop a stinker.. jesus christ i hate DTTF.. i waste the whole day watching the game. only 2 see crap.. plain crap

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    1. I think people are expecting too much out of him because of the last round. He hasn't had a great game against the spurs yet, but I do agree that he under-performed today but i wouldn't necessarily call it complete crap

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    2. Aldridge. Pathetic.

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    3. He was actually playing quite well (23 PRA after 3 quarters), but then Portland got a huge lead and then he sat the entire fourth quarter to rest as the Spurs never made it close. That's just bad luck. I feel your pain. I thought I had it bad with a 29 in Game 2. Go figure.

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    4. Just bad luck. That was unexpected. He still hit 50% FG, just not enough rebounds and attempts (went to Lillard). Tough luck.

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    5. It is a long way off from the 66 PRA and 52 PRA games that LaMarcus Aldridge posted in the first two games vs. the defensively challenged Houston. He has been on a downward spiral since then.

      The Spurs have a much better defense than Houston by a wide margin. I think a more realistic goal would have been if Aldridge could crack the 40+ plateau in this series. He hasn't been near doing that yet. Hopefully, since I have yet to pick him, he can do it in his final game of the year in San Antonio. At least I hope that it can happen that way.

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    6. Ha, I still have you all beat with my 0 by Aldridge in game 7 of the first round (too bad the Blazers won in 6 so there was no game 7 in that series. if you go and look at my picks you can still see this mysterious game on the last day of week 2 as "game in progress"). But as somebody pointed out I will just add the points I would have gotten (26 by DeRozan on that day, 46 of Aldridge when I planned to pick him in game 1 of the second round, minus the 14 I got from Pierce that I picked in game 1 of the second round) so that puts me... never mind. It wasn´t a good DTTF so far for me this season, even without that happening.

      In other news, Batum was the best of the day behind the King, narrowly missed a triple-double and scored a very nice 36. For tonight I was chosing between Wall and Beal and I went with Wall, simply because he was the less popular pick.

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  16. I could have cried because of Aldridge's shocker of 23 PRA but I can't because my body fluids are being converted to sweat because of the absolute Heat of the weather (no pun intended). It was just 34-35 degrees celsius in our area but the air was so humid that it will give you headaches. HAHA

    Going with Beal tomorrow and Batum the next day just because he is putting great value. I doubt that Batum will have the same success as he did playing at home but its better than picking a Net. I will freak out if Beal scores less than 25 PRA.

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  17. Wow I can't believe that LA actually did worse than the 29 he had in G2, that sucks. Looks like Batum tied his G3 PRA in G4 so that was purely neutral.
    The Nets are down 1-3 but Portland won so they are in the same position, no chance to advance but are options so out Deron Williams, Paul Pierce, Robin Lopez and Wesley Matthews who will do best?!
    As for today I'm thinking what were the odds that one team (OKC) would blow a 22 point lead much less the Wizards lost after being up by as many as 18. That changes things big time for today and any other remaining games for those series.
    With LAC/OKC, the Clippers rally tied up that series at 2-2; which means at this point we are walking on thin ice in that series; there are 2 paths one that the Thunder will advance, the other that the Clippers (surprise everyone) take the next 2 (I don't see the Clippers winning a G7 at OKC). I'm leaning Thunder but if they lose in 6, I'd have to use KD or RW tonight and the other in G6 to avoid losing out on one of them.
    The Wizards meanwhile blew as big as an 18 point lead in G4 meaning that they could be eliminated tonight and only 1 of 4 legitimate Wizards (Gorat is super invisible prone) gets used.
    If the Thunder advance, I will use BG in G6 if Wizards lose tonight but if the Wizards make it one more game do I take the risk of losing BG, to have someone if that series goes to 7. If the combination of the Wizards losing tonight and the Clippers/Thunder going to 7 occurs, I will have no one for G7 so I am praying that the Wizards force G6 and/or the Thunder win in 6.
    Like I said a lot of thin ICE if Clips win in 6 one of the SUPER TWO gets left unpicked. At the same time if I use one of them to assure that the possibility of one being unpicked doesn't happen and the Thunder make it to the Finals I'm done. I already have 1 pick that not only wasn't playing in his last round but even 2nd to last round with PG, I can't afford another but losing a major pick like KD, RW or BG is scary.

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  18. Series updates:

    Brooklyn played well enough to win at home, but ran into the LeBron Heat or the Miami LeBrons, whichever way you want to say it. LeBron went off for 57 PRA while the rest of the scrubs on that team were along for the ride. Without LeBron this team would be lucky to make the playoffs, never mind win a championship.

    With Brooklyn losing, that pretty much seals their fate down 1-3. Miami should rap this up in game 5 @ home, with the probability of only picking 1 more Nets player on the road.

    Fortunately I won't have to pick a Nets player as I still have very good Portland options to go to. Unfortunately Portland's next game will be their last, but they did rise up on home court and did not just mail it in, when they could have easily done that. Instead they played with pride, and forced that series back to San Antonio, where the Trailblazers will get annihilated in Game #5 (at least based on their last several performances or lack thereof in that building).

    So very happy I get to pick a Portland player, and not a Nets player, with both of these teams on the brink of elimination, although all of these players playing on the road will most likely be less than stellar. Hopefully I get lucky.

    Nick Batum was very decent last night, putting up 36 PRA (just 4 PRA off his playoff high of 40 PRA. Also turns out that Batum had the second best PRA score of the night (other than LeBron's 57 PRA). So I am ecstatic with that effort.

    For tonight, with the Wizards on the verge of elimination, I am going with Bradley Beal. Hopefully he rises up tonight and stands out with a big game.

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