With LeBron James sidelined for an eighth straight game, Kyle Kuzma produced a career-high 41 points for the Lakers on Wednesday evening.
ESPN's Dave McMenamin recently asked, do the Lakers have a defined No. 2 option behind James? A lot could change with the composition of the Lakers' young core in the coming months, but for now, it appears Kuzma is stepping up as the Robin to James' Batman.
All of Kuzma's points came in the first three quarters of the team's convincing win over Detroit. In reaching 40 points for the first time in his career, Kuzma joined James and conference rivals Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and James Harden as the only NBA players to produce as many as 41 through three quarters this season. In fact, Kuzma's 41 points are the most by a Laker in fewer than 30 minutes played in the shot clock era (since 1954-55), per ESPN Stats & Info.
Blake Griffin struggled with just 16 points and notably zero rebounds. Cursory research tells us Griffin had played 634 games of high-level college and NBA basketball entering the Staples center, and this marked his first career game with zero rebounds, including two seasons at Oklahoma. It's likely just an outlier dip in rebounding production for Griffin and will probably balance out with a nice matchup in Sacramento tonight.
With an eye on important fantasy performances and relevant statistical trends, let's delve into the weekend that was in the NBA.
Wednesday recap
Highlights
Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks: 27 points (8-16 FG), 21 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 TO
Anthony Davis, New Orleans Pelicans: 38 points (11-17 FG), 13 rebounds, 7 assists, 2 steals, 4 blocks, 1 TO
Luka Doncic, Dallas Mavericks: 30 points (8-14 FG), 6 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 steals, 4 TO
Kyle Kuzma, Los Angeles Lakers: 41 points (16-24 FG), 2 rebounds, 2 TO
Lowlights
Deandre Ayton, Phoenix Suns: 6 points (1-7 FG), 5 rebounds, 1 assist, 3 TO
DeMar DeRozan, San Antonio Spurs: 9 points (4-15 FG), 5 rebounds, 4 assists, 4 TO
Blake Griffin, Detroit Pistons: 16 points (6-14 FG), 0 rebounds, 6 assists, 4 TO
Marcus Smart, Boston Celtics: 2 points (1-3 FG), 2 rebounds, 3 assists, 1 TO
Wednesday takeaways
Harden merits his own highlights section at this point, as he scored 42 points with 17 combined assists and rebounds last night in losing to Antetokounmpo and the surging Bucks. The rest of Houston's starters had 42 combined points. This is already somehow Harden's 12th 40-point game of the season, tying the franchise record for a single season (Harden in 2015-16 and Moses Malone in 1981-82). With six 3-pointers in the loss, Harden has made at least five 3s in 11 straight games, extending his NBA record.
A 23-1 run in parts of the third and fourth quarters for the Bucks helped cement the pivotal win. Antetokounmpo oddly posted his first game without a dunk this season -- he had at least two dunks in 35 of 37 games entering Wednesday -- and yet pulled in a career-high 21 rebounds. Milwaukee is producing its best offensive season since the heyday of a young Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, lining up Antetokounmpo as key competition for MVP honors with Harden and Coach of the Year recognition for Mike Budenholzer. Since we're talking Bucks, I'll add yet another endorsement for combo guard Malcolm Brogdon as a brilliant free-agent acquisition to consider; he produced 24 points on just 12 shots last night and posted a team-high net rating as a result.
I've been championing the Hawks' John Collins as an underrated and emergent fantasy star this season. Clearly a reader of this column, Collins went ahead and produced a career-high 30 points to go with 14 rebounds last night, barely missing a busy highlights section. Only young Shaq has ever matched Collins' current blend of scoring, rebounding, and field goal efficiency at 21 years old.
It was impressive to see the Wizards bounce back from a bad loss to the 76ers on Tuesday in South Philly with a wire-to-wire win over Philly at home last night in a rubber match. I was most impressed with Otto Porter Jr. overcoming a hand ailment suffered on Tuesday to tally 23 points, his second most of his season, while posting the team's best net rating in the process. Porter remains one of my favorite buy-low candidates for fantasy trades, especially as he's about to return to the starting fold for Washington.
A multi-week hamstring injury to Ricky Rubio could spell a bit of a breakout for Utah's Donovan Mitchell, who delivered 33 points and seven dimes last night and now has at least 25 points in three straight games, tied for the longest streak of his career. While his efficiency has suffered this season, Mitchell now has five 30-point games (seven all last season) and could be on the ascent as the team's offensive engine the next few weeks.
Injuries of note
Reports suggest Minnesota's Derrick Rose should return to action on Friday against the Mavericks. News on Robert Covington isn't as clear, signaling some value for Josh Okogie in truly deep leagues for the next few games.
The Pacers' premier rim protector, Myles Turner, has missed the past three games with a shoulder injury and should be considered questionable for Friday's tilt with the Knicks.
Analytics advantage for Thursday
Save for the Celtics visiting the Heat in Miami tonight, the other three games on Thursday's schedule average a point total of 224. Anything above 220 points is welcome for fantasy purposes. The reasoning is somewhat elementary, as we want high-scoring games to unfold to furnish big numbers for the players involved. The Boston and Miami game has a sluggish point total of just 211 points, roughly six percent shy of the average of the other three games.
We often discuss which games to target as the best fantasy environments on big Wednesday or Friday night slates, while differentiating the unfavorable situations, such as this setup in Miami tonight, can also prove helpful. Boston is 18th in pace and played last night, while Miami is 22nd in pace and prefers to keep games tight with a deliberately slow approach. Given several such limiting elements, fading this game for streaming purposes and speculation in daily fantasy could prove prudent.
Top players to watch tonight
Tonight's four-game slate isn't light on frontcourt value in regards to evaluating the DFS landscape; my crude projection model has Detroit's Andre Drummond and Griffin, Portland's LaMarcus Aldridge, Denver's Nikola Jokic and even Paul Millsap as savvy targets tonight.
It's far more challenging to isolate guards worthy of paying up for on Thursday, which is why I'm targeting two key backcourt names. The Kings' De'Aaron Fox is reasonably priced on DraftKings and yet has an awesome statistical ceiling facing a Detroit team that lacks defensive acumen in the backcourt and is on the second leg of a back-to-back that includes travel. The second guard of choice is a bargain of sorts, as the Spurs' Derrick White should earn plenty of minutes and shots against the Thunder tonight.
