After a 68-win regular season, the Oklahoma City Thunder find themselves in a precarious and unfamiliar position. The Denver Nuggets stole Game 1 on the road on Monday night, when Russell Westbrook ($6,600) assisted a trailing Aaron Gordon ($7,800) for a dagger three on the right wing after Chet Holmgren ($8,800) missed a pair of free throws that would’ve put Oklahoma City up by three.
The Thunder are 10.5-point favorites for Game 2 at DraftKings Sportsbook, with the point total set to 229.5. Oklahoma City is -500 on the Moneyline, while the Nuggets are +380.
DraftKings is offering a Showdown contest for the big game, so I’ll take you through my two captain’s picks, two UTIL picks, and one fade. Let’s dive in:
Set your DraftKings fantasy basketball lineups here: NBA Showdown $300K Fadeaway [$100K to 1st] (DEN @ OKC).
SHOWDOWN STRATEGY
Captain’s Picks
Nikola Jokić ($19,500 CP) – Spending 39% of your salary on any one player is always a difficult pill to swallow, but given how deep the Thunder are, it’s worth splurging on Denver’s — and the league’s — best player and hoping for production from one of Oklahoma City’s cheaper players. The Nuggets’ cheaper players are relatively useless, and David Adelman doesn’t trust them, so betting on Jokić is always the safest call. He should continue to garner high usage rates until his body breaks down — in Game 1, that usage rate was 37.0% — and performances like his 42-point, 22-rebound (83.5-FPT) effort should be relatively commonplace.
Whether or not his shot is falling, his ceiling as a rebounder should continue to be high. The Thunder struggled to control the boards during the regular season, conceding the 11th-most rebounds per game, and they got out-rebounded 63-43 in Game 1. 12 of Jokić’s 22 boards were contested, they came from just 31 total rebounding opportunities, and the average rebound came just 3.6 feet from the basket. That suggests that his gaudy rebounding number can’t be tied to a few lucky bounces; it was purely a combination of elite positioning, strength, and skill, which is sustainable.
Alex Caruso ($7,200 CP) – Caruso appeared on my colleague Garion Thorne’s values column earlier today, and I certainly can’t blame him for that: Caruso was brilliant in Game 1, scoring 20 points, dishing out six assists, blocking two shots, and recording five steals (45.75 FPTS). Oklahoma City can’t count on quite that level of production in Game 2, but he’ll continue to be an important piece as one of the league’s best perimeter defenders, given that besides Jokić, Denver’s other best players all operate predominantly outside the arc. Even as captain, his salary is extremely cheap, so if you choose to captain him, you can roster both Jokić and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander ($11,600) in UTIL spots.
Caruso split his time between several different Nuggets in Game 1, but his most frequent victims were Westbrook and Jamal Murray ($9,000). Westbrook actually did okay in the 18.9 possessions that Caruso guarded him, scoring five points and dishing out one assist while making two of his three field-goal attempts, including a triple. But he forced a turnover on Murray once and blocked him once in just 6.9 partial possessions and also held Gordon to zero-for-three shooting. His regular-season numbers also speak for themselves; of the 255 players who guarded at least 200 shots more than 15 feet away from the basket, opponents shot the seventh-lowest percentage (30.6%) against Caruso, and his 4.0% steal percentage would’ve ranked second behind Dyson Daniels if he’d played enough possessions to qualify.
UTIL Plays
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander ($11,600) – If you choose to captain Jokić, Gilgeous-Alexander is too expensive, given that you’d be left with just $4,725 on average for your remaining four utility players. But if you choose Caruso or some other cheaper option as captain, the likely MVP is a must. Like Jokić, he needs no introduction; during the regular season, he nearly became the third player in NBA history to average more than one point per minutes played, and he also averaged more than five rebounds and six assists per game. Only Giannis Antetokounmpo, Jokić, and Luka Dončić averaged more combined points, rebounds, and assists.
Denver didn’t have much of an answer for him in Game 1. Adelman evidently decided that his favorite option on Gilgeous-Alexander was Christian Braun, who graded out merely as an average defender this season for the league’s 21st-ranked defense overall. Braun didn’t provide much resistance for Gilgeous-Alexander in Game 1, as the 26-year-old Canadian scored 22 points on nine-for-17 shooting and dished out four assists to only one turnover in the 55.9 possessions that Braun guarded him. Gordon and Murray weren’t much better, though; of every defender (or defenders) the Nuggets tried, only Jokić and Westbrook even held him below 50%.
Russell Westbrook ($6,600) – Westbrook continues to be one of the more reliable bench pieces on either side, and it’s clear that he’s earned some level of trust, given that he played in crunch time in Game 1 ahead of Michael Porter Jr. ($5,600). Unless Porter is ultra-efficient, Westbrook should be in the closing lineup again, given his crunch time assist on Monday night. He’s played 25 or more minutes in five of his seven games so far this postseason and recorded 20 or more FPTS in every game that he was healthy. He hasn’t been leaned on quite as much as a rebounder or passer, but he shot 41.9% from deep in the first round, the best accuracy of any series in his Hall of Fame career.
What’s even more promising is that Westbrook only made one three-pointer in Game 1 but still scored 18 points (22.5 FPTS) because he made six of his eight twos. Westbrook the slasher opens up Westbrook the shooter and vice versa, and the threes he did attempt in Game 1 were smart ones — all five came with the nearest defender more than six feet away. During the regular season, he made 34.2% of his wide-open triples, which improved to 46.4% in the first round. Plus, six of his eight two-point attempts came from the restricted area, so it’s not like he got lucky on inefficient looks from within the arc either. I’m expecting another great game from the 2016-17 MVP tonight.
Fades
Jamal Murray ($9,000) – Murray was actually solid in the first game, scoring 21 points, grabbing six boards, and contributing six assists (38.5 FPTS), but he shot the ball relatively inefficiently, making just six of his 16 field goal attempts and two of his seven threes. He was also pretty quiet after a 12-point first-quarter outburst; not-so-coincidentally, Caruso entered the game near the end of the first quarter. In the Caruso section earlier, I already revealed Murray’s mediocre stats against him, and I’d expect Mark Daigneault to try his stopper on Murray for much more than seven possessions in Game 2. Maybe he doesn’t need to, though; Luguentz Dort ($5,200) was even better, holding him to just nine points and two turnovers on three-for-eight shooting, and he also went one-for-five against Cason Wallace ($3,600). Oklahoma City’s perimeter defense just has too many threats for Murray to be a reliable option at his price point.
THE OUTCOME
The model that Denver used to win Game 1 was pretty sustainable. They didn’t have unbelievably hot shooting luck nor get anomalous performances from role players, and nobody on the Thunder played particularly poorly except for Jalen Williams ($9,400). The absurd rebound discrepancy, as described earlier, is more a product of Jokić’s incredible skill and gravity than any luck.
I truly believe that the Nuggets’ improved form after switching from Michael Malone to Adelman is real. Denver looks more confident, it has maximized Westbrook’s talent, and it has the best player in the world. It should also be playing with boosted confidence after pulling off the remarkable comeback win in Game 1.
But Oklahoma City won 68 games during the regular season, including 35 at home. It’s simply too good to lose twice in a row at Paycom Center.
