NBA Grind Down: Saturday, January 24th
Welcome to the RotoGrinders NBA Grind Down Article. Each day, we’ll break down all of the matchups with a focus on defense vs. position stats. The Grind Down shows you Vegas lines, defense stats and projected starting lineups for each and every game.
The analysis should point you in the right direction, but it is still up to you to decipher the information and make your own selections. Use this article to help you gain a better understanding of the matchups for the coming week and build from there. We have everything you could possibly need on our Daily Research console for you to be a successful daily fantasy player!
Note: Fantasy Point Average Listed Uses FanDuel Scoring. For more info on FanDuel’s NFL Scoring System, check out the scoring systems section of our FanDuel Review.
New York at Charlotte – 7:00 pm EST
- Vegas Line – Charlotte -9, 184.5 Over/Under
- New York Proj. Starters – Larkin-Galloway-Anthony-Smith-Amundson
- Charlotte Proj. Starters – Walker-Henderson-Kidd-Gilchrist-Zeller-Biyombo
| New York | Charlotte | |||||||||||
 | Vegas Total |  | Vegas Total | 184 | ||||||||
| Vegas Sprd | Vegas Sprd | -9.0 | ||||||||||
| Team Proj. | Team Proj. | 96.8 | ||||||||||
| Team Pace | 92.64 | Team Pace | 95.00 | |||||||||
| Matchup – Opponent DvP Ranks and Projected Starters | Matchup – Opponent DvP Ranks and Projected Starters | |||||||||||
| DvP Rks | PG | SG | SF | PF | C | DvP Rks | PG | SG | SF | PF | C | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Proj Starter | Shane Larkin | Langston Galloway | Carmelo Anthony | Jason Smith | Louis Amundson | Proj Starter | Kemba Walker | Gerald Henderson | Michael Kidd-Gilchrist | Cody Zeller | Bismack Biyombo | |
| Opp. Season | 9 | 18 | 4 | 12 | 10 | Opp. Season | 23 | 28 | 3 | 5 | 21 | |
| Opp. Last 7 | 5 | 19 | 13 | 11 | 17 | Opp. Last 7 | 27 | 13 | 11 | 3 | 27 | |
New York
The Knicks are playing their second game of three in four days tonight (follow that?). That’s enough to keep me off of Carmelo Anthony after he played 42 minutes last night. Amar’e Stoudemire was rested with the plan to use him tonight instead. Jose Calderon could miss this game with an injury, but we should have clarification on a Knicks lineup before rosters lock, since this is the first game of the evening.
Elite Plays
Langston Galloway — He’s the flavor of the week and you have to plug him in until his price increases significantly. He really does look like a bright spot in this disappointing Knicks season.
Secondary Plays
Amar’e Stoudemire — He’s out of play on FanDuel at $5,800, but a fine option on DraftKings at $4,200. I’m projecting 20-25 minutes and if he starts, he should easily reach value. There is risk involved, but I actually prefer him over Jason Smith. Moving forward with Smith, keep in mind that he’s played heavy minutes in the best possible matchups lately.
Charlotte
If you want to pull something positive from Charlotte’s 39-point loss in Cleveland last night, maybe it’s that they are well-rested for this game; nobody played more than 26 minutes. They might give Al Jefferson another game or two before putting him back in the starting lineup, but so far he has looked very good off the bench in limited minutes.
Elite Plays
None
Secondary Plays
Kemba Walker — In his last two games combined, Walker is 7-31 from the field. A lot of people are going to point to his knee injury as a factor, but it looks pretty fluky to me. The Knicks are the worst team in the league against both guard positions over the last few weeks, so this looks like a great “get right” game for a low-owned player with 50-point upside.
Editor’s Note: Kemba Walker has been ruled out for tonight’s game. Brian Roberts gets a big boost as a result, as he’ll likely slide into the starting lineup.
Lance Stephenson — This is a matchup that Stephenson loves. In two games against New York he is averaging 36.4 DK points per game. He won’t play enough minutes to reach that level tonight, but he’ll still exceed value expectations. Stephenson is priced at $5,200 on both FanDuel and DraftKings and $4,550 on FantasyAces.
Detroit at Milwaukee – 7:30 pm EST
- Vegas Line – Detroit -1.5, 195.5 Over/Under
- Detroit Proj. Starters – Jennings-Caldwell-Pope-Singler-Monroe-Drummond
- Milwaukee Proj. Starters – Knight-Middleton-Antetokounmpo-Ilyasova-Pachulia
| Detroit | Milwaukee | |||||||||||
 | Vegas Total | 195 |  | Vegas Total | 195 | |||||||
| Vegas Sprd | -1.5 | Vegas Sprd | 1.5 | |||||||||
| Team Proj. | 98.5 | Team Proj. | 97.0 | |||||||||
| Team Pace | 95.99 | Team Pace | 96.28 | |||||||||
| Matchup – Opponent DvP Ranks and Projected Starters | Matchup – Opponent DvP Ranks and Projected Starters | |||||||||||
| DvP Rks | PG | SG | SF | PF | C | DvP Rks | PG | SG | SF | PF | C | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Proj Starter | Brandon Jennings | Kentavious Caldwell-Pope | Kyle Singler | Greg Monroe | Andre Drummond | Proj Starter | Brandon Knight | Khris Middleton | Giannis Antetokounmpo | Ersan Ilyasova | Zaza Pachulia | |
| Opp. Season | 1 | 10 | 26 | 13 | 17 | Opp. Season | 5 | 15 | 23 | 29 | 24 | |
| Opp. Last 7 | 1 | 26 | 10 | 9 | 25 | Opp. Last 7 | 19 | 23 | 1 | 20 | 24 | |
Detroit
Since the release of Josh Smith, Detroit’s defense against power forwards has improved quite a bit. Greg Monroe is seeing a lot of minutes and is their most consistent player on both ends of the floor. In injury news, Kyle Singler is questionable with a nasal fracture. If he can’t go, it will likely be Caron Butler taking his place, but I’m not interested despite the minimum price tag.
Elite Plays
Greg Monroe — Monroe is certainly one of the elite low-risk, high-upside fantasy options tonight, and has been for a few weeks now. There have only been two games (out of twelve) in January that Monroe did not get a double-double. The matchups haven’t really mattered for him, though this is a good one.
Andre Drummond — If you were paying attention to Monroe and Drummond combine for over 100 fantasy points against Orlando, maybe you were hoping to roster them together in their next great matchup. I think this is it. Look at what Rudy Gobert and Enes Kanter did against Bucks the other night for reference. Also, he’s had 15 or more rebounds in his last four games!
Secondary Plays
Anthony Tolliver — Let’s not go overboard with this pick, but a little exposure to Tolliver in GPP’s on DraftKings at $3,300 is something that I can get behind. Tolliver is a stretch-four that can come in off the bench for either Greg Monroe or Andre Drummond and put up points in a hurry. He reached 7x value in two of his last three games, but his minutes fluctuate a lot, which is why you shouldn’t use him in cash games.
Milwaukee
It’s going to be tough for Milwaukee to match up defensively with this Pistons frontcourt. It’s similar to the frontcourt that they saw from Utah (Gobert and Kanter) in their last game where the Bucks couldn’t find an answer. But just because they can’t stop them defensively doesn’t mean that they won’t have success offensively, as Detroit is ranked dead last versus centers over the last three weeks.
Elite Plays
None
Secondary Plays
Zaza Pachulia — Disclaimer: I rarely play Bucks and won’t have many in lineups tonight. That said, Pachulia would be the first Buck I go after. As mentioned above, centers can give the Pistons some trouble and Pachulia has been playing well.
Philadelphia at Memphis – 8:00 pm EST
- Vegas Line – Memphis -16.5, 192.5 Over/Under
- Philadelphia Proj. Starters – Carter-Williams-McDaniels-Covington-Richard Mbah a Moute-Noel
- Memphis Proj. Starters – Conley-Allen-Green-Randolph-Gasol
| Philadelphia | Memphis | |||||||||||
 | Vegas Total | 192 |  | Vegas Total | 192 | |||||||
| Vegas Sprd | 16.5 | Vegas Sprd | -16.5 | |||||||||
| Team Proj. | 88.0 | Team Proj. | 104.5 | |||||||||
| Team Pace | 98.58 | Team Pace | 94.09 | |||||||||
| Matchup – Opponent DvP Ranks and Projected Starters | Matchup – Opponent DvP Ranks and Projected Starters | |||||||||||
| DvP Rks | PG | SG | SF | PF | C | DvP Rks | PG | SG | SF | PF | C | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Proj Starter | Michael Carter-Williams | K.J. McDaniels | Robert Covington | Luc Richard Mbah a Moute | Nerlens Noel | Proj Starter | Mike Conley | Tony Allen | Jeff Green | Zach Randolph | Marc Gasol | |
| Opp. Season | 2 | 20 | 20 | 6 | 1 | Opp. Season | 24 | 30 | 28 | 30 | 30 | |
| Opp. Last 7 | 17 | 11 | 2 | 21 | 1 | Opp. Last 7 | 20 | 17 | 28 | 23 | 21 | |
Philadelphia
The 76ers rank last in rebounding rate (47.3) and offensive efficiency (91.2), yet surprisingly they haven’t been horrible with their defensive efficiency, ranked 14th (103.2). They actually took the Grizzlies to overtime in Philadelphia earlier this season, but it would be surprising to see the 76ers keep the game as competitive on the road here.
Elite Plays
Michael Carter-Williams — I’m not convinced that he is or ever will be a good basketball player, but Carter-Williams is a very good fantasy basketball player. Right now, the team has nobody else to turn to for scoring with Tony Wroten out. It’s not that his usage rate increases with Wroten out (it doesn’t), but he does score almost five more actual points per game. He averages over 40 FD points per game with Wroten out, so he’s going to usually reach value at $8,500. Despite the tough matchup, MCW had a triple-double against the Grizzlies earlier this year.
Secondary Plays
K.J. McDaniels / Robert Covington / Nerlens Noel — I don’t like the matchup for any of these three, but they need to be mentioned for their recent success. If you want an interesting game stack for a GPP, use all of these three guys, fade MCW and pair them with the correlation play mentioned below.
Memphis
Memphis gets the biggest boost in pace-of-play of anyone on the slate; Philadelphia is the only team in the top ten of pace (they’re sixth) to play tonight. The 76ers also give up a ton of fantasy points to every position, so it’s safe to say that you’ll want at least two or three Grizzlies in your lineups. I could probably name six, but these are my three favorites:
Elite Plays
Mike Conley — Conley racked up 36 points and 9 assists for a total of 53.8 DK points last time he was matched up against MCW. It’s going to be tough to settle on two point guards on FanDuel, but on DraftKings you can use three and on FantasyAces you can roster five. Conley is in the mix for one of the PG plays of the night, no matter the site.
Zach Randolph — Randolph has been very solid since his return with double-doubles in each of his last seven games, including 18 or more points in six of them. If you’re looking for a correlation play, Conley averaged 48 DK points in Randolph’s previous two 50+ DK point games.
Secondary Plays
Jeff Green — Green is still settling into his new team and his new role in Memphis. In a game like this where they are fully expected to control the game, I expect them to give Green a little more rope to see what he can do. Even if he just plays his normal 30 minutes and isn’t asked to do anything special, he’ll be able to have a good game in this matchup.
Brooklyn at Utah – 9:00 pm EST
- Vegas Line – Utah -4, 191 Over/Under
- Brooklyn Proj. Starters – Jack-Bogdanovic-Johnson-Garnett-Plumlee
- Utah Proj. Starters – Exum-Ingles-Hayward-Kanter-Favors
| Brooklyn | Utah | |||||||||||
 | Vegas Total | 191 |  | Vegas Total | 191 | |||||||
| Vegas Sprd | 4.0 | Vegas Sprd | -4.0 | |||||||||
| Team Proj. | 93.5 | Team Proj. | 97.5 | |||||||||
| Team Pace | 94.27 | Team Pace | 92.83 | |||||||||
| Matchup – Opponent DvP Ranks and Projected Starters | Matchup – Opponent DvP Ranks and Projected Starters | |||||||||||
| DvP Rks | PG | SG | SF | PF | C | DvP Rks | PG | SG | SF | PF | C | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Proj Starter | Jarrett Jack | Bojan Bogdanovic | Joe Johnson | Kevin Garnett | Mason Plumlee | Proj Starter | Dante Exum | Joe Ingles | Gordon Hayward | Enes Kanter | Derrick Favors | |
| Opp. Season | 10 | 22 | 11 | 15 | 2 | Opp. Season | 20 | 23 | 5 | 24 | 6 | |
| Opp. Last 7 | 6 | 29 | 29 | 14 | 10 | Opp. Last 7 | 21 | 24 | 19 | 15 | 28 | |
Brooklyn
The Nets have now lost nine of their last eleven games in a season impacted by injuries, trade rumors, and ownership distractions. Though they are clinging to the 8th seed in the Eastern Conference with an 18-25 record, the sense is that they will soon be in rebuilding mode before the trade deadline passes.
Elite Plays
None
Secondary Plays
Jarrett Jack — I definitely don’t trust any of the Nets’ big men right now and I think Joe Johnson’s upside is priced out in this matchup. So that leave me with Jarrett Jack, another point guard in a slate full of point guards. A quick look at his game logs and you’ll notice that he has a few duds mixed in with the good games. But look at those matchups that he struggled in, it’s teams with elite defenders like Chris Paul, Patrick Beverley, Mike Conley, etc. This is not one of those matchups.
Utah
There’s no news on the status of Derrick Favors at the time of this writing. The Jazz big man missed last game for personal reasons, so keep an eye on that. The other interesting piece of news was that Dante Exum started in place of Trey Burke and subsequently outplayed him on the court. You’d have to assume that Exum gets the start again, but there’s no news on that yet either.
Elite Plays
Rudy Gobert / Enes Kanter — Take your pick if Favors is out, and take the starter if he isn’t. Kanter is the one flashing big game upside the last two games, but Gobert is the more talented and physically gifted (literally five inches away from reaching the rim without jumping) player that would be getting the same minutes if both start.
Secondary Plays
Dante Exum — Exum was rewarded with a start on Thursday and proceeded to jack up ten shots from deep. He made half of them, played more minutes than Burke, and overall looked pretty comfortable. I don’t think we can expect the same sort of success with the three-point shot again tonight, but if he starts he’s worth a look at $3,200 on DraftKings.
Washington at Portland – 10:00 pm EST
- Vegas Line – Washington -3.5, 196 Over/Under
- Washington Proj. Starters – Wall-Beal-Pierce-Hilario-Gortat
- Portland Proj. Starters – Lillard-Matthews-Wright-Robinson-Leonard
| Washington | Portland | |||||||||||
 | Vegas Total | 196 |  | Vegas Total | ||||||||
| Vegas Sprd | -3.5 | Vegas Sprd | ||||||||||
| Team Proj. | 99.8 | Team Proj. | ||||||||||
| Team Pace | 95.59 | Team Pace | 96.80 | |||||||||
| Matchup – Opponent DvP Ranks and Projected Starters | Matchup – Opponent DvP Ranks and Projected Starters | |||||||||||
| DvP Rks | PG | SG | SF | PF | C | DvP Rks | PG | SG | SF | PF | C | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Proj Starter | John Wall | Bradley Beal | Paul Pierce | Nene Hilario | Marcin Gortat | Proj Starter | Damian Lillard | Wesley Matthews | Dorell Wright | Thomas Robinson | Meyers Leonard | |
| Opp. Season | 21 | 11 | 12 | 3 | 8 | Opp. Season | 6 | 6 | 7 | 4 | 3 | |
| Opp. Last 7 | 25 | 8 | 26 | 4 | 18 | Opp. Last 7 | 13 | 3 | 6 | 1 | 20 | |
Washington
The Wizards head into Portland for their first game of a four-game road trip. They narrowly lost to the Thunder in overtime on Wednesday with John Wall and Bradley Beal logging 42+ minutes, so the two-day break was welcomed. Don’t expect Washington to just blow the Blazers out though; the overnight line on this game was -5.5 (Wizards) and it’s tough to blow out teams in their own arena.
Elite Plays
Marcin Gortat — Gortat is in play in this matchup, but especially if Chris Kaman were to miss this game. Think about how little resistance the Wizards are going to face on the glass and offensively in the paint with the Blazers injuries in the paint. This should be an easy double-double for Gortat.
Secondary Plays
Nene Hilario — It was encouraging to see Nene be allowed to play 34 minutes against the Thunder because it appears that he’s healthy. With how everyone matches up, I have Nene as the projected secondary scoring option for the Wizards. Ignore how good Portland has been against power forwards and centers so far this season, because injuries have wiped those stats away.
Portland
This is a tough matchup for Portland. The Wizards are one of the best defensive teams in the league and it certainly translates to their DvP rankings; they are in the top seven at defending all five positions! They have softened up a little bit over the last few weeks, but my personal rule is to avoid bigs and whomever Bradley Beal is covering. Injuries are killing the Blazers, but they are running out of fantasy-relevant players. I’ll probably treat whatever min-priced starters they decide on as tournament-only options, though I’m sure they will be popular in cash games as well.
Editor’s Note: LaMarcus Aldridge has tested his thumb, and decided to delay surgery for now. He WILL PLAY against the Wizards. This lowers Lillard and Matthews’ usage, and takes the backup forwards further out of consideration.
Elite Plays
Damian Lillard — Six of the top twelve fantasy point per game scorers against the Wizards have been point guards. That doesn’t really matter though. Everyone else is out, and somebody has to score. He’s the most expensive option going against the best defensive team, yet he still should be the most owned point guard if Batum and Kaman are out despite all of the other great options.
Secondary Plays
None