Based on my pick plan I can jumble Draymond Green, Klay Thompson and Josh Smith for Game 2.
I originally penciled-in Thompson because he usually bounces after poor games and that I saw he gets a lot of touches, shots and attacks to the baskets in Game 1; they just didn't go in.
However, with the absence (or minutes restriction) of Dwight Howard due to injury, Terrence Jones and Josh Smith may get extended minutes especially if they do a lot of small ball. Their coach admitted they cannot employ their favored big ball without Howard.
My pick: Josh Smith
Friday: Paul Millsap
Saturday: Klay Thompson (if 1-1) or Terrence Jones (if 2-0)
Please blast in the comments on the status of Howard. If they plan to play him unrestricted, I might switch back to Klay.
Even with the possibility that Howard is out, I'm sticking with my plan and picking a Warrior at home before moving onto my Rockets for the games back in Houston. I'm going with Draymond Green tonight. It's the "LeBron ahead" factor for me. Before his injury, we all saw that drawing LeBron James can affect your offensive output with DeMarre Carroll.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of the Hawks, tomorrow I'm going with Al Horford. Jeff Teague looks like he will be a great pick this series, and I plan to use him around Game 4, but for tomorrow I want Horford in this crucial Game 2. I'm going to watch Kyrie Irving carefully, because if he's healthy enough, I'm picking him in Game 3, before it's too late. His injuries will not get better this year, I don't believe.
He will have time to heal before the finals, especially if the West series extends 6 or 7 games. Finals G1 I think is his best spot
Deletei meant Irving
DeleteIt didn't take very long or actually a whole lot of effort by Cleveland, but in just 1 game they managed to take home court advantage away from Atlanta with their road win over the Hawks. I didn't really know who was going to win this series before that happened, especially with Atlanta winning 3 games to 1 vs. Cleveland during the regular season. But after seeing Game #1, it seems quite likely Cleveland will be the team that advances to the next round, unless they completely choke like the Clippers did. So time to hopefully strategically and systematically start picking Atlanta Hawks players and save Cleveland players for the Finals.
ReplyDeleteMy Kyle Korver pick (19 PRA) wasn't horrible, and I got to clear him off the board and he almost met the 20+ PRA threshold. At least it was better than the 8 and 9 PRA performances he put up in his last 2 games, but nowhere near his best 30+ PRA performances he was putting up vs. Brooklyn. Korver hasn't done anything near that since the Hawks beat the Nets. So overall, not bad, definitely could have been worse. He was in the neighborhood of what Al Horford (25 PRA) and Paul Millsap (23 PRA) put up, which was decent for Korver, and not so much for Horford and Millsap, who were both mediocre at best.
Best pick of the night overall: Clearly JR Smith (39 PRA), not likely he does that again.
Best pick from losing team: Jeff Teague (34 PRA)
Horrible picks: DeMarre Carroll (9 PRA) and he got injured, although he was doing next to nothing before suffering the injury which ended his night early. Matthew Dellavedova (5 PRA), got to play more minutes than normal because of Kyrie Irving being camped on the bench, but he did nothing with the added time.
For tonight, I would have picked Clint Capela of the Rockets if Dwight Howard was going not going to play. According to Rotoworld, he is 90% now and likely to start, so that plan is gone. My initial plan for this series was to play David Lee (who had decent numbers in the past vs. Houston) while Marreese Speights was out with injury. David Lee put up 5 PRA in Game #1 and only played 4 minutes. Also was going to play Andrew Bogut, However in Game #1 Bogut was horrible, only posting 4 PRA, and played the whole night in foul trouble which pretty much made him entirely useless for the brief time he was out there. Neither of those options look enticing any more, without some radical change for these two players going forward.
The player that did emerge to star in Game #1 (other than the obvious Stephen Curry, James Harden types) was Shaun Livingston of the Warriors. Livingston was great in this game, putting up 27 PRA, which was easily his best playoff performance thus far. Up to this point Livingston was only putting up single digits to low teens PRA scores, so this was a huge surprise. Wish there was some way to know when these players were going to fire off their best efforts from obscurity. In any event, Shaun Livingston will be my pick for tonight. Hoping for another 20+ PRA effort from him at home, and hoping it isn't too late to ride the wave and take advantage of Livingston's new found relevancy.
*I would change to Clint Capela, if Dwight Howard does not start. Right now though Howard is probable to start, and if he does get hurt again it would probably be best to use Capela at home anyway, if given a choice.
Howard at 90%. hmmm. that means Jones and Smith get heavy minutes.
DeleteHarumpf. Now that worked out really great. Forgot to pick Carroll in game 1 of the second round, missed out on 27 PRA. Now I pick him and what happens? And I am not talking about his injury five minutes from the end. He was invisible long before that. I got him on his worst game of the Playoffs. Way to go, me.
ReplyDeleteMy buddy in the league got the better of me by picking Schröder. Can you imagine that? I can't.
Tonight I stick with my pick of Klay Thompson for the reasons pointed out by Taong above. I am not switching around just because there might be adjustments for an injured player. The fact that I don't do this should be a sign that this adjustment might be a good idea :)
Tomorrow? Another Hawk, though I am not sure who to pick. I don't have Horford, Carroll didn't pan out. I still want to save Millsap and Teague. Korver? Schröder? I am really leaning towards Korver. But not decided yet.
Shroder's G1 PRA is an isolated case. Your buddy got lucky, and no reason to pick him goong forward.
DeleteTeague vs injured Irving
is better than
Teague vs golden boy Curry
Howard to Play tonight. Switch back to Thompson?
ReplyDeleteThey don't plan to play him unrestricted, so no switch back to Klay.
DeleteIf Warriors, 2-0:
Moving Klay to Game 5. Or Finals.
Terrence G3. Brewer G4.
Should I play Klay, draymond or terrence tonight? Already used josh smith, ariza etc
ReplyDeleteDraymond is the safe pick due to consistency.
DeleteKlay for the possible bounceback.
Terrence to exploit Howard's liminute minutes.
Based on just these three, I'd go Terrence, but expect him to go only +5 his average PRA.
Im second in my league and the guy ahead of me is picking draymond tonight so that means its between klay and terrence. Dwight apparently said "he's feeling good" so who knows how much of a minutes restriction he will have. Gonna go ahead and pick klay.
DeleteSo Howard will play tonight. Sources said he look good during warm ups. Think I will switch my Josh or Terrence pick to G3 or G4 for Klay tonight.
ReplyDeleteWent with brewer..... 4 pra.......... utter disappointing
ReplyDeleteWell surprisingly nobody guessed correctly who I took in G1 of Cavs/Hawks, that turned out to be Iman Shumpert who got 13 (dropping me from 71 to 68 percentile) but had only 7 PAR going into the 4th quarter so at least some salvaging was done though disappointed after the 23 and 24 he had in his 2 previous games as he was nearly as bad as the 9 and 10 he got before but I thought latter form rules.... just not since I had him.
ReplyDeleteTonight I took Harrison Barnes, who slightly disappointed me with 15 PAR missing some late shots but only did 3 worse than Klay a slightly closer to Klay than in G1 so I got +2 than if I took them the other way around, not much difference but better than none or negative like so many other times. The only significantly picked player that beat him afterall was 11% picked Draymond Green who had 27 (+12) but I'm planning on saving him for the finals anyway.
Notable results:
22% Harrison Jones 15 (0)
11% Trevor Ariza 14 (-1)
20% Josh Smith 13 (-2)
15% Corey Brewer 4 (-11)
That is 68% of the field that did the same or worse than me with those picks alone. Andrew Bogut was the surprise of the day with 26 PAR, rebounding BIG time with his 2nd best performance these playoffs after a "4" in G1 and fortunately only 1% grabbed that.
Shaun Livingston the huge surprise in G1 (with 27 PAR) dropped down to 12 PAR, though ironically still above his average.