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.
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Saturday, December 4
Boston runs Portland absolutely out of town dumping 145 pops on the Blazers; Giannis-less Bucks blast Miami in their revenge game; Golden State drops an easy one to San Antonio even without resting none of its starters
It's not that the Blazers are the most menacing team out there these days, but that doesn't take for the monstrous scoring effort by the Beantown Boys on Saturday as they combined for a ridiculous 145 points on the night. Dennis Schroder and Jayson Tatum led the scoring barrage with 31 points each while four more players finished with double-digit points along with Enes Kanter's nine pops. Jabari Parker was the only Celtic (12 men featured) without a single point, though he just played three minutes.
Milwaukee handed Miami an L in retaliation for its earlier loss to the Heat on the season, and they did so without featuring Giannis. That said, Miami was also missing both Bam Adebayo and Jimmy Butler. In the Western Conference, the biggest news came from the Warriors' loss to San Antonio even though Stephen Curry was fantastic with a 27-8-5-3 packed line. The problem? Stardom-tier Dejounte Murray and his slate-leading 53 DKFP to the tune of a 23-12-7-2 dub-dub for the Spurs. No ceiling on Murray's horizon, folks.
- Unusual suspect in the top-3 plays of the day with Bobby Portis making the cut thanks to a sound 19-16-3-2-2 dub-dubbing effort against Miami in just 30 minutes of playing time starting at the center position and getting an above-average-but-still-low 22 USG%.
- Nikola Jokic gets the Most Efficient Player award as he was somehow able to drop a 32-11-5 line (with 3 treys and an overall 73.7% shooting from the floor) on New York opening the slate in a measly 27 minutes on the court. Ridiculous average of 1.81 FP/min that wasn't bested by anyone on Saturday.
- Lonzo Ball with a classic: 8-9-7-2-3 all-across-the-board contribution to a Chicago squad that topped Brooklyn thanks to all of Zo, LaVine (31-8-6-0-1), and DeRozan (29-6-3) top-17 finishes in DK fantasy leaderboard.
- With Damian Lillard out for a while recovering from a lingering injury and Anfernee Simons also banged up, it was always going to be Dennis Smith Jr. manning the point for Portland. And oh boy did he deliver the goodies. Most valuable player of the day with a 21-4-6-3 line, shooting 7-for-14 and going 6-for-8 from the free-throw line in 37 (!) minutes out there. Ballers gonna ball.
- Terence Davis started at SF for the Kangz and Sacto somehow defeated the Clippers on Saturday. Davis played 29 minutes downsizing the Kings lineup and finishing with 6 treys for a total of 28 points, to which he added 4 boards and a steal. Not bad for TD.
- Payton Pritchard finally got his game right dumping 19 pops and 5 treys on Portland yesterday posting season-highs or falling just short of them in pretty much every statistical category even though he only logged 18 minutes--the good thing about that, though, is the fact that he was able to reach a ridiculously high 1.69 FP/min average efficiency.
- Chicago didn't quite miss him, but Nikola Vucevic wasn't nearly as good as expected delivering a low 11-5-2-1 line in the Bulls W against Brooklyn.
- No real stinkers on the day, though the likes of Jaren Jackson Jr. (13-5-2), Dillon Brooks (11-3-3), Andrew Wiggins (11-4-1-0-1), and Richaun Holmes (1-6-3-0-1) all started for their teams yet didn't quite put up numbers.
- Coach Thibs has made it clear (as if it wasn't enough already) that Kemba Walker won't play unless he accepts an off-the-pine role, which he seems to be stubborn about going with... All of LaMelo Ball, Terry Rozier, Mason Plumlee, and Jalen McDaniels will be out for 10 days or more after hitting the COVID-19 protocols... Luka Doncic sat out yesterday on the second half of a back-to-back, so no worries... Alex Caruso played banged up and had to leave the floor eight minutes into the game with a right hammy injury.
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