Starting 5 - Back to Back: Saturday, March 7th
The Starting 5 Series will provide Grinders with a quick look at the day’s top positional plays, analyzed through the lens of our Daily Research Tools.
Today we’ll take a closer look at the Back to Back tool, and analyze some teams to target that have played a high number of games recently. Today is filled with teams playing back to backs, “three in four” and “four in five”, which could mean teams are tired. I don’t put too much stock in teams being tired, but I do use it as a tiebreaker if I am considering several players at a position, and I put more weight into it if the team I’m targeting has been traveling every night.
POINT GUARD – TYREKE EVANS vs. MEMPHIS
Memphis checks all the boxes today, they are playing a back to back, and it’s their fourth game in five nights. And if you look at the schedule, they have had a lot of travel in this span as they have been alternating home and away games, while the Pelicans have been on a homestand.
I typically don’t target players against Memphis, but if you look at the numbers for PGs against them recently, you will change your mind quickly. The DvP is in Evans’ favor tonight, and if you go through the box scores of recent games, PGs have been doing very well against the Grizz recently. I like Evans as an off-the-board GPP play tonight that could be very rewarding.
SHOOTING GUARD – ERIC BLEDSOE vs. CLEVELAND
The Cavaliers are another team that checks all the boxes tonight, playing a back-to-back tonight after traveling home from Atlanta last night, and playing their fourth game in five nights (and traveling for every game). Bledsoe has taken over as PG for the Suns after their trades of Dragic and Thomas, and gets a decent matchup against Kyrie Irving tonight. The Suns are on a back to back as well, and third in four nights with travel every game as well, but I still like the matchup for Bledsoe tonight if you can afford him.
SMALL FORWARD – ANDREW WIGGINS vs. PORTLAND
The Timberwolves are well rested right now, not having any boxes checked in our Back to Back tool, and while the Blazers are not on a back to back, they are playing their third game in four nights tonight. The Blazers have traveled for all three games, and just suffered a season-ending injury to Wesley Matthews in their last game. Wiggins has been playing huge minutes, and has been a very consistent fantasy producer recently, and should be able to produce again against the Blazers tonight.
POWER FORWARD – KENNETH FARIED vs. HOUSTON
Both teams in this game are playing a back to back, as well as their fourth game in five nights, so theoretically you could target either team here, or ignore the matchup as they are on even footing. I don’t have any actual evidence of this, but it makes sense that a tired team heading to the altitude of Denver would struggle (and we’ve seen examples of that this season), so I’ll argue Faried is a top-tier play.
He gets a very weak interior defense of Houston, which is without Dwight Howard. Furthermore, Faried has really played well since the firing of Brian Shaw. The minutes are finally consistent, and the price is still very reasonable, and he is one of my top PF choices on the night.
CENTER – AL HORFORD vs. PHILADELPHIA
I do expect the Hawks to sit players tonight, so pay attention to news later in the day, but if they follow their rotation of sitting players, I expect Milsap and Korver to rest tonight, which will have Horford being the main focal point against a Sixers team that is playing their third game in four nights. Horford has dominated the Sixers in two meetings already this season, and should have no issue again tonight. And if the Hawks rest some players tonight, he becomes my top center play of the night.