NBA Matchups: October 27

 

We’re back! I thought we had a pretty good day on the takes from the opener, and a lot of the preseason stuff carried over. Of course, a lot of it didn’t. I know one-game samples are not gospel, but it’s always interesting to see how teams come out with rotations, schemes, and pace to start their season. Additionally, all of these season stats I’m mentioning do not include the two teams who played Thursday night (Bucks and 76ers), and it looks like the tracking cameras didn’t work for the Dallas at San Antonio game (so those guys aren’t included for the ranks on touches, drives, C&S, matchup data).

 

DET @ CHA | DEN @ MEM | NYK @ ATL | MIA @ BOS | OKC @ CLE | TOR @ CHI | HOU @ SAS | BKN @ DAL | LAC @ UTA | ORL @ POR | GSW @ SAC

 

Detroit Pistons (front end) at Charlotte Hornets

Team Totals:

Injury Report: Bryce McGowens (Q, ankle)

Pistons projected starters: Cade Cunningham, Killian Hayes, Ausar Thompson, Isaiah Stewart, Jalen Duren

Hornets projected starters: LaMelo Ball, Terry Rozier, Gordon Hayward, P.J. Washington, Mark Williams

Monty quotes: Said he was proud of his team for coming back and he liked how they defended in the halfcourt, said it said a lot about the team to hold Miami to 45 in the second half, said Cade is “coming around” and he was able to get downhill, said Cade is in “relative shape”, said he didn’t want to get his guys too high in minutes but that’ll come soon, said they turned the ball over way too much in the first half (Miami had a 21-0 lead early on points off turnovers).

Clifford quotes: Said he was going to try to keep LaMelo around 30, said Brandon Miller isn’t like most guys his age and he really corrected his fouling as the game went on, said Miller competes and played really well down the stretch, said foul trouble may have affected Miller’s shot volume.

Stats and Notes:

*The Pistons were more active on defense and they were very good at limiting some clean offense from the Heat. That’s kind of how it goes, but their athleticism jumped out. Maybe the Pistons will be a little better overall this year. Their offense still was quite gross, as they were funneled into mid-range shooting, which we know Monty and Cade love. The Hornets played a great game against the Hawks, getting some easy baskets around the rim with an impressive 58 potential assists. They ran really bad on their off-ball scoring, so things could have looked a lot better. 

*Cade Cunningham had a terrific start to his season, and it was a massive on-ball role. Only Luka Doncic had more PNR handler possessions. Cade was sixth in touch time and seventh in potential assists. This puts him in a huge spot on a night-to-night basis. His shot profile was really interesting, taking six C&S treys, driving it 19 times for 12 points (only SGA drove it more), and he even mixed in four transition possessions. It was really good stuff. Matchup-wise, he’ll certainly get Terry Rozier, who has been mostly a neutral matchup. Cade is a really interesting option here.

*Jalen Duren finds himself in a really good spot tonight. He had five possessions as a cutter/roller and he had seven screen assists to tie for the most on Wednesday. This came against a terrible matchup in Miami, as well. Of course, the headline is that he got to 32 minutes. We love centers vs. Charlotte, so this is an extremely easy target.

*Killian Hayes saw 31 minutes, but the offensive role was pretty gross. All 12 of his possessions were jump shots, which isn’t great. It’s Cade’s show.

*Ausar Thompson had an eye-popping 19 minutes in the first half but was dialed back in the second half to just eight minutes. Part of that was because Alec Burks was leading the comeback charge. Ausar doesn’t really have an offensive game yet, and he’s going to have to grind his way to fantasy value. That’s not my cup of tea on a big slate.

*Isaiah Stewart saw some heavy minutes, but his role was John Collins-y as a floor spacer. While he can fill it up thanks to his rebounding, it looks like Duren has the better night-to-night role.

*Jaden Ivey is in real trouble. He had just seven minutes of overlap with Cade and two minutes with Hayes. He’s in big trouble early with Monty burying him.

*LaMelo Ball’s minutes were cut, as he was just under 31 minutes. He was subbed out quicker, as coach Steve Clifford kept his word to keep him near 30. That’s probably coming up, but the role was just massive. Even in those minutes, he was fifth in touch time, running the offense for almost all the time out there. The other part that stuck out was LaMelo had 12 points on 10 C&S attempts for the second most in the league (Strus). This is all going to come down to his minutes, but he should be in a solid spot matchup-wise against Ausar Thompson.

*Terry Rozier was in a really good spot in the opener as Clifford matched his minutes with Trae Young, which led to Trae getting the Rozier matchup on the other end. In this spot, we can probably expect the same thing with Cade. The Pistons are likely playing Cade a ton, and Cade isn’t a great defender. However, there is a chance that Killian Hayes guards him, which is fine. Either way, Rozier is in a huge spot after getting 48 frontcourt touches and 5.5 minutes of touch time in the opener.

*24 teams played on Wednesday and Gordon freakin’ Hayward led the NBA in frontcourt touches at 50. His matchup could be against Cade to make it softer, and the role is enough to consider him. Plus, he actually saw some minutes as a guard in huge lineups. He’s healthy these days and doesn’t appear to have a limit with no B2B today.

*Mark Williams ate against Clint Capela, and he gets another favorable spot against Duren. While his role wasn’t all that great from a touch (14 frontcourt) and play standpoint, he owned the boards and got to 30 minutes. Digging a little deeper, Williams had a whopping 26 rebounding chances to lead Wednesday’s action (also was first in contested rebounds in just 30 minutes!). He’s good, not great.

*P.J. Washington had a favorable matchup last game, but this time it’s a little tougher with more size in front of him in Beef Stew. Interestingly, he picked up some minutes as a 3 next to JT Thor and Nick Richards, and we should expect his minutes to be extremely safe.

*Brandon Miller did get a ton of positional versatility out there, but it’s just tough to trust him with low usage and not really facilitating.

 

Great matchups: Terry Rozier, Jalen Duren

Good matchups: LaMelo Ball, Cade Cunningham, Mark Williams

Bad matchups: P.J. Washington (sort of)

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Denver Nuggets at Memphis Grizzlies (front end)

Team Totals:

Injury Report: Santi Aldama (O, ankle), Luke Kennard (O, concussion)

Nuggets projected starters: Jamal Murray, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Michael Porter Jr., Aaron Gordon, Nikola Jokic

Grizzlies projected starters: Marcus Smart, Desmond Bane, Ziaire Williams, Jaren Jackson Jr., Xavier Tillman

Malone quotes: Said they had great halfcourt D and bad transition D, said rebounding was not great overall, said Jokic stepped up on guarding AD in the second half, said he was proud of MPJ and they “don’t sign specialists around here”, said he will continue to put Jamal or Jokic on the floor at all times, said Jokic really works on his 3-pointers and he has the green light to shoot them whenever he wants, said he went to Jokic a little earlier in the fourth because he’s his “security blanket”, said Julian Strawther “will be out there at some point”.

Jenkins quotes: Said he thought the non-Bane lineups were fine and he’s confident they can get it going (they weren’t good; -55.4 net rating with Bane off the floor), said they were playing pretty small when Zion was at the 5, said Konchar is going through personal stuff and he will be in the rotation “pretty soon”, said Kenneth Lofton will get opportunities soon.

Stats and Notes: 

*The Nuggets just looked like the Nuggets, as they let Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokic set the tone. They lived in the halfcourt as usual, and it’s pretty much par for the course. There were a lot of similarities from the Grizzlies with excellent rim defense against the Pelicans per possession, as JJJ held it down. The biggest thing that stood out from the Grizzlies was their fourth-highest halfcourt frequency. Obviously, this is largely tied to Ja and it’ll be something to watch. This is also potentially really bad news for them in this matchup with the Nuggets looking like a better halfcourt D than a transition one. The other thing was the Grizzlies were bombing 3-pointers at 45.4% of their shots. It’s like an anti-Ja offense in every regard. I smell a blowout and took Denver -3.5 during the DFS show yesterday.

*I do want to note the Grizzlies’ rotation first. We know Taylor Jenkins loves 10-man rotations, and he ran nine on Wednesday. John Konchar was available to play, but apparently they wanted him to ramp up after a personal issue (this news took forever to come out in the preseason). Luke Kennard, Jake LaRavia, and Derrick Rose were all quite bad, so Konchar has to replace Kennard or LaRavia (more on Kennard below). It was just a brutal game.

*Nikola Jokic does get a bit of a tougher matchup against the Grizzlies. They’re still going to be plenty big as he deals with Xavier Tillman, but it rarely matters for Jokic unless he’s playing against the high-end tough matchups. He still had a huge role, as he leads the league in frontcourt touches, touches, and is third in potential assists. I’m a little worried that there’s a blowout here, so I’d be nervous about Jokic’s ceiling.

*Jamal Murray’s usage was a little down in the opener, as Taurean Prince handled him very well. The frontcourt touches were there at 44 to put him second among guards (Rozier), but his usage took a huge hit as the Lakers paid way more attention to him after he smoked them in the postseason. I wouldn’t read into that at all. However, he gets a tough matchup with Marcus Smart, and again I have blowout concerns. I wouldn’t play the Blue Arrow here.

*Kentavious Caldwell-Pope will almost certainly have Desmond Bane on him, but KCP is just a guy who has to take advantage of mistakes on the other end. The Grizzlies slowing their game down makes KCP slightly less appealing.

*Michael Porter Jr. was killer on the glass with his 27.0 DRB%, and the best news was he got to 30 minutes even with a minute of garbage time to close. There’s not much to this, and we know MPJ’s role on O will generally be the same. He’ll have Ziaire Williams on him, and it’s possible Ziaire is caught up in the Denver actions. MPJ is probably my favorite play here, but I’m not into this game.

*Aaron Gordon will have JJJ on him, and JJJ will help off of him to protect the paint. Gordon will also have to guard JJJ on the other end to give him a tougher assignment.

*It was a great day for #PreseasonRates on Desmond Bane. He led the preseason in points per game, and his usage rate held at almost 30% in the opener. He even led the team in potential assists, touch time, frontcourt touches, and drives. ALPHA. I don’t really like this matchup with him running into KCP, and I do worry about this game being close despite the spread.

*Jaren Jackson Jr. just had a rough game, and he’s not exactly in a great position in this one. The Nuggets are a great rebounding team and JJJ is a pretty bad rebounder for his size anyway, so JJJ is just going to have to catch fire from deep.

*Xavier Tillman is going to have to play a ton of minutes here. The Grizzlies just don’t have anyone else on the roster to guard Jokic, and they’ll probably try to match his minutes with Joker. I also don’t think there’s much to say about Marcus Smart. He was second in the ball-handling role, and it just doesn’t seem like he has a path to a big ceiling. Although, he may have to play a ton of minutes with Kennard out.

*While Luke Kennard is out, I just wanted to mention him real fast. In the opener, his struggles in the preseason bled into the regular season with his 0-of-5 shooting. Kennard’s shots were short, and he mentioned that he needed to get his legs into his shot more. As a member of the Grizzlies, he was the league’s best C&S player, so it’s just odd. If he’s cold, there’s no reason to play him. I doubt they pull the plug this soon, of course. With Kennard out, you’d think they have to get John Konchar back in there after his time off for personal reasons (he was not listed on the injury report). I don’t think there’s enough ceiling on Ziaire Williams, David Roddy, or anyone else. Man, Jake LaRavia was bad on Wednesday.

 

Great matchups (I’m kind of off this game, but…): Michael Porter Jr.

Good matchups: Nikola Jokic

Bad matchups: Jaren Jackson Jr.

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New York Knicks (front end) at Atlanta Hawks