Fantasy Basketball Night In Review: Thursday, November 18

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.

Thursday, November 18

Depleted Sixers win a game after five straight losses by beating the Nuggets, Steph puts on a show once more cooking himself a 40-chicken-wing meal against the Cavs

I said it on Twitter a few hours ago: we've grown so accustomed to Curry's exploits that we don't even bat an eye when this Chef goes to cook 40+ meals like the one he handed Cleveland on Thursday. Steph, of course, led the DK slate of games to the tune of 61 DKFP on a 40-4-6-2 stuffed line including hitting his lone freebie and 9 treys on the day. That's insane, yet we don't seem to realize we're witnessing greatness. Ridiculous 42.4% usage rate for Curry, also.

Jokic played 36 minutes (which is like a lot for him) and finished with a 30-10-7 (including one swat) stat line that allowed hit to make it to the top-2 yesterday... on a game Denver dropped to a still Embiid-less Philly. Nothing to like about the Nugs yesterday, as even counting on that fantastic game by Jok and a top-9 outing by Will Barton (19-9-8) could do nothing to stop the 76ers--and that's with no player from Philadelphia finishing inside the top-10 on DK.

• Jimmy Butler headlines this section for the second consecutive day as his 50 FP against Washington elevated Miami past the D.C. Squad. Jimmer did it on zero triples yet reaching 32 pops to go with 3 boards, 5 dimes, and 4 (!) steals. 10-for-10 from the charity stripe and a sky-high 57.9% shooting from the field adorned his line in a day in which he also commanded nearly 35% of all Miami's offensive possessions turning the ball over just once.
• Kuz got Cozy against the Heat. 40 minutes, 19 pops, 13 boards, and 7 dimes with a steal and 4 treys baked into the best performance of the season from Killer Kyle. Kuzy did it on a silly low 19% usage rate and scored highly on low volume hitting 7 of 12 shots from the field.
• Brad Beal was sublime putting up a 30-6-5-1 line hitting 61%+ of his field attempts with only the blemish of turning the ball over 6 (!) times through the game.

• Vital performance off the pine from Charles Bassey for the Philly Sixers as he played 19 minutes and put up a mouthful 12-7-0-1-3 line shooting 71% from the floor and going 2-of-3 on freebies. The 1.51 FP/min efficiency was great and with Embiid out and Andre Drummon stinking it's not that Bassey won't have more chances going forward.
• Nemanja Bjelica started the year with a few bangs for the Warriors, then disappeared, and... he is now back? Looks like that's the case after playing 24 minutes from the bench and putting up some good 14-3-3-3 trifecta-affected line in GSW's trouncing of Cleveland.
• Can't not mention it: Rudy Gay debuted for the Jazz, played 19 minutes, and got himself a sound 20-5-2 line with 5 treys and going on a silly 87.5% rampage in just 8 shots from the field. Gay is still mega-available in re-draft leagues and super-cheap in DFS contests, so take advantage before fantasy GMs catch up with this vet's exploits.

• Just when we thought Dejounte Murray had taken the leap... 'Jounte could only finish hit a 7-8-4 line including one block on a putrid 16.7% shooting night in which he went for a healthy 12 FGA facing Minny. Forgettable as hell performance, this one.
• Getting back to Drummond... Ugh. Dre played 29 minutes and all he did was finish with a silly 4-6-1 contribution turning the ball over once and committing 5 PF against the Nuggets. Absolute drop, the one Drummond has experimented during the past few games.
• Nikola Jokic left yesterday's game early but HC Michael Malone made it clear that the biggie boi should be good for tonight's match against Chicago... Steph seems to be carrying a sore hip, so he's questionable for the game against Detroit on Friday... No clarity on LeBron's front (questionable) but whispers say he might be back to face the Celtics at the Garden today.

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