Change of Mind

With the Rockets down 0-3, this may be our last chance to pick a Rocket.

If you still have Josh Smith because you've been saving him for an elimination game, I think you are in good position with that pick. Smith is a free agent this summer, and there's no other place he can showcase his worth than this Game 4 in Houston. He should be able to produce near his Game 3's 28.

I veered away from my pick plan and decided to move Klay Thompson and Draymond Green to the Finals. The change of mind made me pick Terrence Jones in Game 3 and place Corey Brewer (MFFL!) in Game 4. The flaw there was me settling on the promise of 18 PRA whereas what I really needed was 20+ PRA to move my percentile closer to 99 (currently at 94). Jones before Game 3 wasn't really trending towards a 20+ PRA game, and I should have seen that. Now, Game 4's Brewer is in same situation where he does not seem to get enough minutes nor touches lately to even break his average.

Andrew Bogut on the other hand is trending up. He had 26 and 25 PRAs the last two games. If he can get 20 PRA, that's still better than Brewer's. Typical reasoning is that he is a Warrior not a Rocket, and he even starts for them, thus should be picked in the Finals. Actually, his playoffs average puts him behind seven other players I have lined up for the Finals, so I can definitely afford to pick him now while his upswing is still fresh. Who knows if he'll have a better (or worse) outing against the Cavs?

My pick: Andrew Bogut



Anyone else in this series looking like a 20+ PRA guy?


Comments

  1. After putting in two very lackluster lack of efforts at home, Atlanta actually rose to the occasion in Game #3 and made a competitive game out of it, nearly winning. This was easily the best Atlanta effort of this series, and probably of their entire playoffs, and it took everything Cleveland had to win this one, even needing OT to do so.

    Al Horford was ejected in this game for a questionable Flagrant 2 foul, which changed the dynamic considerably as Horford was well on his way to a monster effort, as he had 19 PRA in only roughly a half. This opened up many other players to have at least decent games for them from the Atlanta team. Also this was the best Atlanta effort of this series, and they had to deal with the most adversity, considering that they had already lost starter Kyle Korver to injury, and with Al Horford, one of their best players ejected, you could easily see the Hawks giving up at that point. So Kudos to them for hanging tough, and making this a competitive game, that they came this close to winning.

    With all of that said, Atlanta still lost, and is now in an 0-3 hole, and the outlook still looks bleak for playing beyond Game #4, after digging a huge hole for themselves by punting their first 2 home games. If they had played with the same effort they did in Game #3, they would have won one of those for sure, if not both, and their position would be a far different one from what exists now.

    My pick, Paul Millsap (31 PRA), definitely benefited from the ejection of Al Horford, as did Jeff Teague (43 PRA) who had a monster game in Horford's absence. Millsap was doing next to nothing prior to the ejection and in fact wasn't even looking to score until Horford was dismissed. Then he started to look interested on offense after that, and went from 12 PRA at halftime, to finish with 31 PRA which was far better than what he had been doing in this series (11 and 23 PRA). This was the 6th 30+ PRA effort from 7 road games for Millsap in this year's playoffs, who has been far better on the road than at home in the playoffs. I am quite happy I picked the right night to pick Paul Millsap for 31 PRA, just 9 PRA short of his best 40 PRA effort vs. Brooklyn.

    (Thanks Taong for pointing that out!) Other players from the Atlanta Hawks also emerged with the absence of Horford, some from complete obscurity.

    Best picks (overall): Despite starting 0/10 from the field LeBron James had a herculean type of game scoring 68 PRA. No one other than him, will probably ever come close to putting up that total. Only time I have seen that done is when they used to double rookies scores in the NBA Pick One game and a few players over the few years they ran that had over 100 PRA (after doubling their scores). Also Candace Parker did the same thing as a rookie in the WNBA version of Pick One. Other than that, I believe this is the highest PRA score I have ever seen.

    Best picks (losing team): Jeff Teague (43 PRA) monster game, Kent Bazemore (24 PRA), Paul Millsap (31 PRA), Shelvin Mack (20 PRA), Mike Scott (19 PRA). All aided significantly by the departure of Al Horford (19 PRA) who was well on his way to a great game of his own.

    Other decent Cleveland picks of note: JR Smith (28 PRA), Matthew Dellavedova (22 PRA), Iman Shumpert (23 PRA).

    Horrible picks: Dennis Schroder 14% played (1 PRA, 3 minutes played) Kyle Korver 3% played (0 points, DNP), 3% were not paying attention. DeMarre Carroll another disappointing (15 PRA) vs. other rounds, Carroll has been awful in Round #3.

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    1. no worries. i should have waited for millsap to play on the road too

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  2. Speaking of 0-3 holes, that is what the Houston Rockets face after mailing it in for Game #3 at home, after dropping the two road games played at Golden State. Houston played far better despite losing in Golden State, one game by just 1 point, then completely brought nothing to the table in Game #3 and got annihilated. I have no idea which Houston team shows up tonight, but at this point, I really don't care that much either.

    This team is dead in the water at this point down 0-3, and I have only one realistic Houston Rocket to pick anyway. That player is Josh Smith who just had a more than decent 28 PRA effort, one of the few good ones for the Rockets in Game #3, as most players for their team completely stunk it up, and were an embarrassment. I am hoping for another decent hopefully 28+ PRA effort from Josh Smith tonight, the night I actually do pick him. Hopefully I didn't miss the boat by not picking him in Game #3, and he actually shows up again tonight.

    For Houston, if they show up great, if not that's even better at this point. With no worthwhile Rockets left to pick after tonight, I will be forced to go with Golden State Warriors players from this day forward.

    The third round has been brutal. I'll be very glad when it is over.

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  3. Okay, I guess that's it. I'm done for this years DTTF.

    Just came back after a weekend with no internet to check out what happened. The Warriors annihilated the Rockets by 35 points in Houston? Huh? My pick Ariza was not as good as he should have been. he was supposed to stink in every third game (Starting with the second round: 26, 30, 13, 29, 33, 19, 32, 25, 14, so I was expecting something around 30, and got a 17).

    Then last night, it was a great game. The Cavs win in overtime, LeBron gets an insane triple-double of 37/18/13. What did my pick do? I'll give you a hint. Beginning with the second round he had: 16, 18, 25, 26, 18, 13, 13, 17, coming from the bench. And this being an overtime game, woohoo. Too bad I had Dennis Schröder who got benched, and that obviously led to the competitive game the Hawks had.

    Of course I was going to pick Teague and Schröder, and I decided to pick Schröder first (because nobody would be good in game 4 being down 0-3) and Teague next (because he is the guy to do at least something in that fourth game). Teague had a 43 and will probably be under 20 in the next game.

    Don't say I didn't warn you. I gave my pick plans well in advance. All you guys picking Teague in game 3 may thank me now :)

    Tangent, if I could, I would give you Barnes' points. It's not as if I need those any longer. Not after a 0 by Carroll (for not picking him) and a 9 by him (when I picked him) and a 1 from Schröder and a 11 from Millsap. This round has been incredibly bad. Boring and extremely bad timing on my side.

    I don't even care enough to change my pick for tonight from Terry to somebody worthwhile like Brewer of Jones. Who cares? MFUDR. Terry it is.

    My picks for the rest of this stupid round: Teague for game 4, Brewer and Bazemore (changed from Korver as he is out) for games 5, Jones for game 6 (no Hawk).

    For the Finals I will have Curry and Green and James and T.Thompson and Shumpert and Bogut and Iguodala and Smith and lots more. I guess that series will go at least 9 games.

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    1. I appreciate the Barnes point donation. We will both still get the same PRA, but you now got 10-5-1 from Barnes and I now got 4-2-1 from Barnes. That feels slightly better. Rejoice! I agree that this round has been putrid. And yes, thank you for Teague! Much appreciated! I feel for anyone who picked Schroder. That benching was out of nowhere. Go JET!!! Break the aceee curse that Alex has somehow gotten a hold of!

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    2. Alex you have more than 7 good ones for Finals. Pluck one of them and pick them now in G4

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  4. Glad you took my advice Taong and went with Bogut. The main risk with him is that he can pick up fouls like nobody else's business, but that comes with the territory. I think he's done well taking advantage of a less than healthy Dwight Howard. He's better right now than Terry, Jones, and Brewer, although I have a feeling tonight might be a good night to be a Brewer picker. He looked like he was getting back into form last game. Plus, with Alex's awful undeserved bad luck this round, Brewer will start and Terry will play only 7 minutes, so it could be a good game.

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    1. yes thanks. couldn't have even peeked at bogut's game logs if you have not mentioned him.

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  5. I will go with Bogut tonight. There's enough players to pick in the finals. I do not want to pick any Rockets other than Harden, Howard, Ariza and Josh.

    The Finals Roster:

    Lebron, Irving, Curry, Green, Tri.Thompson, Shumpert, J.R. Smith, Matthew, Mozgov and Iggy.

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    1. Really Bogut could not at least scored 10 points. Really got a donut hole in points category. The Rockets always plays better facing elimination? Now I will have to dig deep and used a Rocket in Terrance Jones. Don't want to pick any other Warrior benches.

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  6. Oh great, the game appears over after 1 quarter... Rockets up by 23 and here is the biggest shocker, Jason Terry has 8 PAR and that is only being on the floor for half the quarter. Meanwhile how do so many people still have Josh Smith in G4 of this series?! A bunch of people must have miraculously not used him or Ariza in the 2nd round.

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    1. I was picking the Rockets other garbage earlier. Harden, Dwight Howard, Ariza, and Brewer in Round #2, only Dwight did decent for me, other than 17 out of Brewer, which turned out to be one of his better performances (who knew he would be so awful in this series). In this round, all Rockets have been dismal, including the aforementioned Jason Terry who put up 7 hideous PRA when I happened to pick him.

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    2. That should read, In this round, all Rockets in Round #3 that I have picked have been dismal.

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  7. Are you kidding me 3 fouls on Bogut in the 1st half of the 2nd quarter? ...Dwight Howard HOU/LAC G4 II

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  8. That was a nasty spill for Stephen Curry. Very ugly looking. The only good thing is he didn't get an arm down, otherwise he might have broken either an arm or a wrist, if he had. Still he probably has a concussion, and might miss time because of that.

    For those that haven't used him yet (myself included in that number), very lucky as he will most likely recover from the concussion (if that is what the situation turns out being), and be able to play at least by the finals. Way better scenario than had he broken something.

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    1. Stephen Curry back in, panic averted.

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  9. What is wrong with Andrew Bogut? Big fat Goose egg in regular points, 1 FIELD GOAL attempt and even 2 free throws were bricked!

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    1. What a Bi-polar player, it's like there is 2 different players named Andrew Bogut, one of then shoots close to 10 FG attempts and makes most of them, the other hardly shoots and can't make what h does shoot... not to mention being on the floor less than half the game.

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    2. That's Andrew Bogut. He's not an offensive force. Most of his shots are open dunk shots when he gets them. He's also perpetually in foul trouble. Think about it - he didn't score a point and we still got a 12 from him.

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    3. Nobody expects him to be THAT bad, the good thing is he salvaged 12 PAR from the other 2 catagories, the bad news is he only played 21 minutes including resting the final 6 minutes of the 3rd quarter AND 9 minutes in the 4th quarter, that's 15 of 24 minutes in the 2nd half that he was off the court, could have gotten 15-18 PAR if not for that screw job, made me think he got injured.

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    4. No injury. The score of the game is what cost him minutes. Golden State went small ball trying to push the pace, score some 3's, and go on a run. Nobody expects him to be that bad, true, but honestly, other than a couple of good games lately, he's done this all playoffs. He was a worthwhile pick because the likes of Brewer and Jones aren't much better, it just didn't work out.

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  10. Well, so much for saving him for the Finals. Steph Curry in Game 5, lock and load! I'm going 100% Cavs in the Finals, and maybe Iguodala. Don't trust any of these Rockets. If I'm going to pick junk, I'll do it later. Now, here's hoping Curry lights it up with a huge performance!

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  11. Jason Terry got the BIG 2 O, who would have thunk it, and of course that means his pickers got 8 more PAR than Bogut picks, I have HAD it with this round! FIVE picks that got 15 or worse, after a nice reprieve yesterday that got me up to 74%, now I'm going right back down thanks to more invisible garbage!

    Since the Rockets won, I have to pick from another game in that series and since Jason Terry got 20, I'll take him in G5 and he'll probably disappear again!

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  12. I've been so far managing this third round. Started off with clunkers in barnes (4) millsap (23) brewer (4)
    However sinxe then I've gotten delly 21, jsmove 28, bazegod 24, and today ariza for 25.
    In the third round anything 20 pra and up is all you can really hope for. Secons round prob min was a high 27+ and first round 30+.
    Currently in 80 percentile with pretty much all the warriors and cavs to choose. Should be a fun final for me

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