Fantasy Basketball Night In Review: Friday, February 26

Antonio Losada looks back at yesterday's slate of games and comments on fantasy basketball risers, fallers and takeaways from the games played then and there.

Welcome to the RotoBaller NBA Recap. In this feature, we will highlight a few key fantasy basketball takeaways from the games played during last night's slate. These viewpoints can be both positive and negative and will hopefully help to provide insight into different roster moves you should consider making based on trends and statistical nuggets from around the Association.

Fantasy basketball has a lot of moving pieces with all the different scoring settings that are possible to play under, so I will always do my best to spotlight where players gain or lose value in certain game types. For the sake of simplicity and consistency, every time I mention Fantasy Points in these articles I will be using DraftKings' scoring system, which goes as follows: 1*PTS, 0.5*3PM, 1.25*RBD, 1.5*AST, 2*STL, 2*BLK, -0.5*TO. On top of that, bonus points are awarded for Double-Doubles (+1.5) and Triple-Doubles (+3), only one per player at a time.

Without further ado, let's get right into the latest slate of games from the 2021 season and try to figure out how to take advantage of what we saw transpire.

Friday, February 26

It's now five wins in a row for a Miami Heat squad that just defeated the best team in the NBA

It cannot be argued that Miami, after making a deep run at the chip last year, had a rough start to this season. The Heat reached their lowest point around three weeks ago when they fell to a 7-14 record, but in the 11 games after Feb. 3 they have sandwiched a three-game losing streak between two four-game winning ones. Oh, and after last night's W the latter one is now adding up to five in a row. Not bad, considering that last victory came against the seemingly unbeatable Utah Jazz.

Jimmy Butler put on a really good effort inching close to the trip-dub but ultimately finishing with a more-than-good 33-10-8-1 dub-dub in a game where he shot 55 percent from the floor (22 FGA) and hit 9-of-11 freebies while committing just 3 turnovers on a quite high 37% usage rate. Bam put up a similar 19-11-7-1-1 line, Nunn kept his starting role over a still-gearing-up Dragic, and only Donovan Mitchell reached 40+ FP on the night for the Jazz.

• Malik Monk keeps at it. Monk played 36 minutes, put up 30 FP, and hit 5 treys for a total of 25 points against Golden State while adding 5 boards and a single dime. Monk is available in 80 percent of Yahoo leagues and looks like a must-add for anyone in deeper formats. Monk is one of Charlotte's second unit leaders and he's more viable in 8-cat leagues so you get rid of his TOs.
• Kelly Oubre Jr., who could be moved before the trade deadline if GSW opts to go all in this season, had a great night shooting putting up an 85 true shooting percentage on 15 FGA and a couple of freebies. He finished with 27 points, 3 treys, 6 boards, 3 dimes, and a steal to spare. 40 FP in 38 minutes starting at SF.

• Garrett Temple keeps disappointing his fantasy GMs... Another game starting, another game with 32 minutes of playing time, and another game in which all Temple could do was reaching 8 (!) FP for a putrid 0.25 FP/min production. That sucks, as simple as that. The line was all but flashy at a low 5-2-2 with 2 TOs.
• Not to hate too much on the Bulls, but Wendell Carter also killed all fantasy dreams around him (7 FP starting at C and playing 25 minutes), while Patrick Williams put up another dud (16 FP in 34 minutes also starting)...

• We had a rare game by Trae Young, who is a fantasy monster more often than not. Yesterday's wasn't his night, though, as all he could do was finish with a 17-6-8 line shooting a paltry 33% from the floor and reaching only 33 FP in 31 minutes. Good-not-great per-minute numbers, but very low counting stats for someone of his level.
• The Celtics got the W against Indiana, which is something surprising to a certain extent these days given Boston's shaky ways. Someone who keeps flying under the radar but excelling of late: C Robert Williams. The big man played 22 off the pine, racked up 40 FP, and closed the day with a dub-dub reading 14-11-4-1-3 while shooting 75% on 8 FGA and adding a couple of freebies to that. Available in almost 70% of Yahoo leagues, Williams is one of my weekly WW-targets entering Week 11.

Download Our Free News & Alerts Mobile App

Like what you see? Download our updated fantasy basketball mobile app for iPhone and Android with 24x7 player news, injury alerts, lineup notifications & DFS articles. All free!

More Fantasy Basketball Analysis