NBA Player News

Butler missed Miami’s last two games due to a stomach illness and is unlikely to be ready to return on Thursday. Who replaces him in the starting lineup has changed by the game, with Haywood Highsmith receiving the nod in Monday’s win over the Nets. Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Duncan Robinson, the latter already being a starter, will also be worth streaming consideration.

One day after being named the NBA’s Most Valuable Player, Gilgeous-Alexander showed on Thursday why he was a deserving recipient of the award. Not only did he shoot over 50 percent from the field, but SGA attempted 15 free throws. One of the NBA’s best at getting to the foul line, Gilgeous-Alexander attempted 29 free throws in the first two games of the Western Conference Finals, making 24. Simply put, if Minnesota is to have any chance of getting back into the series, they’ll need to do a far better job of defending SGA without fouling. Game 3 is on Saturday night.

Moody, who sometimes played with his right hand wrapped late in the season, was dealing with a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his right thumb. According to the Warriors, Wednesday’s procedure was successful, and Moody is expected to be a full go when training camp begins in September. While he has not been a consistently impactful fantasy option, the Warriors guard appeared in 74 games this season and established career-best averages in points, assists, steals and three-pointers. Moody won’t be a must-draft player in standard leagues, but he’ll be worth a look in deeper formats.

Adelman took over for Michael Malone as the interim head coach with three games left in the regular season and led the Nuggets to Game 7 against the Thunder in the second round of the playoffs. Adelman, 44, has been an assistant coach with the Nuggets since 2017 and is the son of former NBA coach Rick Adelman. Nikola Jokic and Aaron Gordon publicly lobbied for Adelman to be made full-time head coach in the aftermath of the Nuggets’ loss to the Thunder. According to Charania, the Nuggets were impressed with Adelman’s work as the interim head coach and will take some time before hiring a new general manager.

Once again, Hart was able to make his presence felt despite not contributing much as a scorer. He led both teams in rebounds and led the Knicks in assists in the loss. Hart is certainly capable of getting hot, but his role is to do a lot of the other little things to help New York win. Expect him to continue to stuff the stat sheet for the remainder of this series.

Turner got off to a hot start to this game and contributed 11 points in the first quarter without missing a shot. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to add much after that, and he sat almost the entire fourth quarter before returning for overtime. Though Indiana was able to steal Game 1 on the road, Turner will need to be much better than he was after the first quarter of this game if they hope to advance to the NBA Finals.

Nesmith was unstoppable in the fourth quarter. He scored 20 points, which came on six three-pointers and two free throws. That was enough to help send this game to overtime, and while he didn’t do more scoring, he made an impact on defense to help Indiana steal Game 1 on the road. 30 points matches his career high in any game, and his eight triples were a new career best in any game. Nesmith may not shoot like this often, but he got hot at the right time to help the Pacers take a 1-0 lead.

Towns started off his first conference finals appearance on a high note by setting a new playoff career high for points. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough for the Knicks to get the victory and defend their home court. Towns struggled to hit shots from deep against Boston and only hit three triples in that series, which he surpassed in this game alone. They’ll need him to continue to shoot like he did in this game in order to tie this series up in Game 2 on Friday.

Brunson did everything he could to help the Knicks take Game 1, but it simply wasn’t enough. This was the ninth 40-point game of his playoff career and his second of this postseason. Two of Brunson’s seven turnovers came in overtime, and New York lost the turnover battle 15-7. They’ll need to clean that up in order to get back on track in Game 2 of this series on Friday. Expect Brunson to continue to pour in the points for the entirety of this series.

Seven games of this please. Haliburton hit an unreal shot at the end of regulation that bounced high in the air before falling in. His toe was on the line, which sent this game to overtime, and the Pacers were able to secure the victory to take homecourt advantage in the series. Haliburton had a phenomenal performance, which is what they expect of their All-Star. Haliburton will continue to lead the way as Indiana now sits three wins away from the NBA Finals. Game 2 will be on Friday in New York before the series shifts to Indiana for Games 3 and 4.

In a two-man race for the NBA’s most prestigious regular season award, SGA emerged victorious behind averages of 32.7 points, 5.0 rebounds, 6.4 assists, 1.7 steals, 1.0 block and 2.1 triples. He shot 51.9 percent from the floor, 89.8 percent from the charity stripe and 37.5 percent from beyond the arc. Gilgeous-Alexander powered Oklahoma City to the NBA’s best record with a franchise-high 68 wins and the top seed in the Western Conference. SGA finished as fantasy’s third ranked player on a per-game basis behind only Nikola Jokic and Victor Wembanyama.