Losing Korver is the final straw to the Hawks' downfall. It all started at All-Star Weekend when the Hawks' starters were in an all-time high. What followed were games uncharacteristic of who the Hawks were before the All-Stars. It seems they were content to getting to All-Star. Injuries now in the playoffs are the dagger on the back. Hawks have no hope.
Then here we are in DTTF who are supposed to be rejoicing with our all-Hawk picks going to this round. What followed were disappointments. It is still otherwordly to even think of picking a Cav just to make up for the points, but let's just save them for the Finals.
Assuming the Cavs and Warriors sweep, here are my Finals roster (sorted according to average PRA):
* LeBron James
* Draymond Green
* Kyrie Irving
* Klay Thompson
* Tristan Thompson
* Harrison Barnes
* Iman Shumpert
The last three have PRAs of around 17, so it can justify picking a Hawk capable of 17 PRA in Games 3 and 4.
I am saving DeMarre Carroll for an elimination game (because that's what I do with incoming free agents sometimes). And so I am going with Dennis Schroder. Nothing exciting there, just scraping up the bench for PRA.
Note that the absence of Korver may open up big minutes for Kent Bazemore, both as starter at the 2 and as backup to Carroll. If he starts, you may want to consider switching to him.
I am at PCT 93 and needs 6 straight solid showings (at least average PRA) to get to PCT 99. That and the correct placing of LeBron "may" bump me into Top 100. One day of subpar PRA will mean two steps back. This is a challenge.
Good luck!
UPDATE: Kent Bazemore will start. Changed pick from Schroder to Bazemore. It's a gamble.
Hopefully today will be much better than yesterday. I got all of Alex Herge's much desired rebounds! So excited! Except...... none of the points to go with them. I successfully avoided the aceee06 curse, as Jones had 11, but walked right into a worse performance with Barnes getting a 7. Oh well, I'm more confident in Jeff Teague tonight anyways. I expect a good performance from him. Somebody has to score in Atlanta these days.
ReplyDeleteAlso, based on your list of available picks in the Finals, I can only assume you have the same pick as I do for tomorrow - could it be Andrew Bogut?
Deletebogut is a good pick for G4. he had 20+ PRAs in G2 and G3.
Deletebut he's on my backup for the finals. one of those 7 may be injured, or he can replace shumpert
and you have me thinking.
Deleteok, maybe
Tangent, you lucky bugger. Teague 43 PRA??!!
DeleteVery lucky. I thought Teague would be good today, but I got the perfect storm of a) Horford's questionable ejection putting more emphasis on Teague to run the offense, b) a player getting hot in a close game, and c) overtime. That will be huge. Game 4 will be trickier. Decision between Bazemore, Dellavadova, Carroll, and, ..... perhaps the Mack Attack?
DeleteHouston played 2 very competitive games in Golden State, almost winning Game #2, where they only lost by a point, a game decided in the last seconds when James Harden got snuffed out around the 3 point line going for the final shot. So you would think that with Houston heading home, and after playing well in a place they had no business playing well at, and nearly pulling off the impossible, they would be inspired heading back home to put forth their best effort and try to get back in the series after falling behind 2-0 on the road.
ReplyDeleteWell none of that happened at all. Houston was downright horrendous with a complete lack of effort and they absolutely got decimated on their home court in embarrassing fashion. It was another horrible playoff game, in a Playoffs where there has been far more horrible games than good ones. This has truly been one awful playoffs season as a whole, and other than a few good games, and the Clippers vs. Spurs series, almost every other game has been an incredible bore with massive blowouts in far more games than good competitive ones.
After seeing Game #3 from the Rockets and their total lack of effort in it, it would be hard to imagine this series has much more life left in it. Will the Rockets even try in Game #4 now after being down 0-3? Most teams in this scenario, or even in better scenarios this season have completely mailed it in. In years past, teams would at least strive to win their home game, before heading back to the opponent's court to get thrashed. There was the mentality of not getting beat on your own home court that was the prevailing force that would usually get a team's best effort not to get beat at home. That doesn't seem to exist any more, now teams just lay down and tank, and get utterly destroyed, even in front of the home crowd.
For Houston now, this is over, it is just a matter of time. Judging by their Game #3 lack of effort, time for them seems to be very short. Looks like a Warriors vs. Cavaliers final on the horizon with lots of off days in between as this 3rd Round has been a complete dud for entertainment value.
My pick of Jason Terry (7 PRA) was horrendous as expected. He brings virtually nothing to the table any more and should just retire as he is just a waste of space out there now. It still would have been nice if he could have gotten to the 15 PRA level or so, as he had been doing in several games, prior to this disaster. My only other Houston Rockets player to pick, Josh Smith (28 PRA) had a really decent day. Wish I would have switched my pick for this day to Josh Smith instead of Jason Terry. Of course it wouldn't be me if I actually picked these players on the right days. In any event, everyone should avoid Josh Smith like the plague in Game #4, as he will be my pick. And I am sure he will fire off his worst career game in that one, since I will be picking him.
Best picks (Overall): Stephen Curry (52 PRA), Draymond Green (35 PRA), Andrew Bogut (25 PRA), but all three from the winning team.
Best picks (losing team): Josh Smith (28 PRA), definitely the pick of the day since he had the highest score from the losing team. Andrew Bogut (25 PRA) also gets consideration though, as he probably won't do that again. So this might have been your one bite at that apple, so to speak.
Horrible picks: Pretty much the entire Houston Rockets roster, but we will definitely single out Jason Terry (7 PRA), James Harden (24 PRA) horrible game for him, Trevor Ariza (17 PRA), Terrence Jones (11 PRA), Corey Brewer (14 PRA), and Harrison Barnes (7 PRA) from the Warriors. All these players way below average, especially Harden.
For those picking Terrence Jones 27% (11 PRA) and Corey Brewer 20% (14 PRA), believe it or not got very lucky as both players had half of those numbers with like 5+ minutes left to go in the game. Both players responded big time in garbage time to even get the numbers they ended up with. Wish I had that luck, although even with that a dismal night was had by almost anyone picking a Rockets player last night.
Plenty of teams tend to give up just at 2-3 with a G7 on the road, (so they lose in 6) let alone at 0-3 where no body has come back. This year though the road team is 6-0 in G6 including 2 that the hosts lead 3-2 and went on to lose the series (Clippers were involved in both). The Cavaliers are going to be just the 2nd team with the worse record to win the series, both in no more than 5 games avoiding a home G6 let alone a road G7 and assuming it's a sweep, I lose a major Hawk, though the way the 3rd round has gone, I can't really complain about a possibly minimum 8 day Conference finals affair.
DeleteJosh Smith got a 7 in G4 of the 2nd round vs. Clippers so it will be really hard to pull off a worse game.
Terrence Jones got only 19 minutes, I expected more, he wasn't terrible for the minutes he played but that number was terrible leading to a very poor score.
Cleveland heads back home up 2-0 after winning both road games vs. an Atlanta Hawks team that is both injured and looking very disinterested in continuing on or playing hard any more. A sweep looks very, very likely here, as Atlanta looks like they just want to lay down and quit.
ReplyDeleteHopefully we can still get some productive games out of some of the Atlanta Hawks players for the last 2 games of this series, but after seeing the first two games of this series, the outlook looks increasingly bleak for that to happen.
As Taong has pointed out Paul Millsap seems to do better on the road than at home, at least in these playoffs he has. Millsap is coming off of a horrendous 11 PRA lack of effort at home, and tonight he will head to Cleveland to try it again, hopefully with much better results. I also have Al Horford, who is banged up a bit, so I'll wait to see one from him, and Jeff Teague left to pick. Teague had the best overall numbers vs. Cleveland during the regular season, and I will save him for the elimination game that is sure to eventually happen.
So for tonight, I will go with Paul Millsap, hoping he rebounds from his dismal 11 PRA lack of effort, and realizes he is on the road tonight, and goes back to putting up the 30+ PRA efforts he is capable of when playing on the road (done 5 times this playoffs out of 6 road games). Granted that was all against Brooklyn and Washington, but we can always hope it happens anyway.
Also Kent Bazemore is getting to finally start tonight in place of Kyle Korver. I already used him unfortunately when he didn't get enough minutes to make a difference, thinking that DeMarre Carroll would be ineffective (correct) and benched (incorrect) in Game #2. Wish I still had him to pick now, as he seems the most upbeat of any of the Atlanta Hawks players right now.
ReplyDeleteHowever in any event, if you are short on Hawks players, and looking for options, you could probably do a lot worse than picking Kent Bazemore finally getting the opportunity to start tonight.
wish kent had a good G2. if he had, i'll be more comfortable picking him tonight.
DeleteHorford?
ReplyDeleteyeah horford is good for today if you still have him
DeleteHorford ejected. Bs call, I don't think he should have. Flag 1 yes but not 2.
DeleteGreat, this was going to be a great pick to end on a bs call. Which will cost me 20 PAR the entire 2nd half.
DeleteF****** Dellavedova for ruining our Korver and Horford pick.
DeleteChanged pick to Bazemore. Starts.
ReplyDeleteAre you serious...my luck is so bad this year lol I picked horford today and he gets ejected...my last two picks were millsap with 11 klay with 18..sitting at 76 percentile when I was in top 100 last year. I guess you can't get lucky every year
ReplyDeleteJust glad I dodged Schroder. I am not watching, just reading game feeds barely. What happened to Scroder? 1 PRA and just 3 minutes?
ReplyDeleteCoach decided to play Mack more.
DeleteThanks Grazer! Knew it, something felt wrong about picking a bench player just out of PRA history alone
DeleteCoach changing the game plan after things really didn't work in Game 1 and 2. Schroder is good bench scoring but a defensive liability, I believe, so they might be better off with the Mack Attack as their bench guard.
Delete32/18/13.... I hate LeBron, but fukkkkkkkk. He will never get anything close to this ever.
ReplyDeletedon't worry about it. only 2% picked him, maybe those playing the round prize. noone in the running for grand prize would pick lbj up 2-0 in conf finals.
DeleteOh my fucking god I picked schroader and forget to check if kyrie was playing or your pick , so then I wouldve picked bazemore or delladova which is both better than schroders 1 fantasy point. How much do u think my percentile will drop if I am currently 96th percentile
ReplyDeletei'm sorry for you buddy, noone would have seen it coming except hawks coaching staff.
Deleteit's like missing a pick, so from 96 i'd say about 94, 93.
Oh OK thanks hopefully green gets it done tommorow
ReplyDelete