Fantasy Basketball Night In Review: Monday, April 19

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.

Monday, April 19

Nikola Jokic and Ja Morant top the leaderboard in a 2OT mano a mano; Curry drops 49 and keeps getting calls for his MVP candidacy

A night packed full of storylines to cover today, folks. First things first, and when it comes to fantasy basketball it was all about the pair of Jokic and Ja. The squads these two guys lead went on to play four quarters... and two extra periods in a match that finished with Jokic outperforming the Griz and Ja and getting his Nugs the W. Insane night for both men as they played 45 minutes each while reaching 78 (Jokic) and 72 (Ja) fantasy points. Two dub-dubs on the day for them, with the Joker at a 47-15-8 line and Morant finishing with a sweet 36-8-12-3-1 stuffed line.

Third on the leaderboard: Steph Curry. This guy is just insane. I'm not here to make a case for MVP Curry because it's a little far-fetched when Jokic and Embiid have been there all year long, but Steph is in a flamethrowing streak these days. It's been 11 games scoring 30+ points every single night for Curry and he just put the cherry on top on Monday with a 49-pop outing and 10 treys. As ridiculous as it sounds, Curry has dropped 78 triples in the past 11 games. 113 other players have scored 78 triples on the full season, with D'Angelo Russell doing it in the fewer games already having 28 GP. No wonder, Curry leads all players with a freaking 260 treys in his 50 games. Jeez.

• JoJo made the most of his 32 minutes on the court against GSW, and although Philly couldn't get the win Embiid was able to put up a near-trip-dub to the tune of a 28-13-8-1-1 monster line. That could have been even better, as Embiid shot just 38% from the floor on 21 FGA. The freebies keep coming, though, as he went to the line a slate-leading 14 times while hitting 11 of those attempts.
• De'Anthony Melton, one of the best under-the-radar rookies/players this season, had his magnum opus yesterday playing 41 minutes off the bench and getting 54 FP against Denver. The line read 25-8-6-4 on the day, shot 53% from the floor while scoring 6 triples, and obviously, he was the best reserve player of Monday by a mile. Must-add in every 10+ team league out there, as he's still available in 90 (!) percent of Yahoo leagues.

• Miami didn't need a lot to beat Houston yesterday, and that's why Kendrick Nunn (30-7-8), Andre Iguodala (16-6-7-2-2), Goran Dragic (19-6-5-1-1), and Duncan Robinson (19-5-4-1) were the best Heat players on Monday finishing inside the top-35 performers of the day, including Dragic even though he came off the bench.
• This is more tired than wired these days, but... Russ put up another triple-double. Westbrook logged a 13-11-17-3 line, which is great for us fantasy nuts, but not so much in the context of the real game. Sure, the Wiz snatched the W against OKC and are this close to get into the play-in (tied with Chicago though losing the tiebreak for the 10th seed), but Russ shot a measly 28% on 18 FGA, turned the ball over 8 (!) times, and took a ton of opportunities from other players to rack up points, which sucks to watch.

•  The Lakers are about to get Anthony Davis back (perhaps this week) with LeBron James starting to gear up a bit. In the meantime, Andre Drummond has struggled mightily playing far from his dub-dub early-season self, and only Dennis Schroeder and Talen Horton-Tucker could finish above 27 FP on Monday facing Utah. Somehow, the Lake Show got that W against the no. 1 team in the NBA on Apr. 17, but not yesterday as the Jazz ran LA out of the court for good.
• LaMelo is 7-to-10 days away from coming back, and the Hornets will definitely welcome him for the home stretch and turning their postseason push into a reality. Hayward should also be back before the end of the season. On the other hand, Monte Morris and Myles Turner got down injured and the latter might miss the remainder of the year. The Pacers are still in the play-in but they might fall down if they're not a little bit lucky down the road, and Denver should still have enough to hold onto the no. 4 seed... unless LBJ and AD can take the Lakers over the Nugs.

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