After a heartbreaking loss in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, the New York Knicks will be back for redemption tonight with a must-win Game 2 on friendly hardwood at Madison Square Garden. The track record for teams that fall behind 2-0 in a series isn’t great — just 7.3% of those teams have come back to win — so the Knicks could see their hopes all but end tonight with a defeat.
In honor of the big game, DraftKings is offering a Showdown contest with a $500,000 prize pool. Here are two players I would consider captaining tonight.
Set your DraftKings fantasy basketball lineups here: NBA Showdown $500K Shootaround [$100K to 1st] (IND @ NYK)
PG Jalen Brunson, New York Knicks vs. Indiana Pacers, $15,900 CP
There were several reasons why New York failed to close out Game 1, but Brunson was hardly one of them. Sure, the diminutive southpaw wasn’t perfect — he had seven turnovers, including one with 29 seconds left and the Knicks leading by five and two more in overtime — but overall, it’s hard to ask for much more than 43 points and five assists (48.75 FPTS). In the first round, Brunson had to go against Ausar Thompson and Dennis Schröder, and in the second round, he was contending with Derrick White and Jrue Holiday; by comparison, Aaron Nesmith ($6,600) and Andrew Nembhard ($7,200) are no challenge. Case in point: Brunson scored 14 points on five-for-six shooting when guarded by Nesmith during Game 1, although Nesmith did force him into four turnovers.
Brunson’s scoring repertoire is extremely well-rounded; he’s one of just 14 players these playoffs to have made at least one field goal per game from the restricted area, from floater range, from the midrange, and from above the break. He’s also fifth in free-throw attempts per game, having drawn consternation from fans and announcers alike for his foul-drawing tendencies. That’s not to consider all the ways he could’ve been even more impactful: his teammates failed to convert five of his potential assists and he went just one-for-five on open or wide-open threes. He also snagged just one of his five rebound chances, far lower than his 50.4% conversion rate in the regular season.
SG/SF Aaron Nesmith, Indiana Pacers at New York Knicks, $9,900 CP
It’s exceptionally unlikely that Nesmith will go on a heater quite to the level that he did in the closing moments of Game 1, when he made six three-pointers in the final five minutes of the game, including three in a final-minute salvo to cut the Knicks’ lead from nine to two. Each triple was more audacious than the last, with a one-dribble pull-up from the left wing followed by an early-shot-clock, two-for-one effort from several feet behind the arc followed by a solidly contested left wing triple off a screen. Nesmith’s eight made threes represented easily a career high, so he won’t repeat that again, but as a 42.3% three-point shooter over his last two seasons, New York will have to be wary of letting him get open.
The Pacers’ offense is fairly egalitarian, so any given player is capable of going off — or staying quiet — on any given night. All nine players in the rotation have had usage rates these playoffs between 17 and 24 percent, with Nesmith technically the lowest of the bench. But he’s not just a standstill shooter — he’s also recorded two or more combined steals/blocks in four of his last five games and snagged 13 rebounds in the closeout game against the Cleveland Cavaliers — making him one of the more versatile, higher-ceiling assets on this fantasy-inconsistent team. So far this postseason, Nesmith has received 30 or more minutes in five different games, recording 38.25 or more FPTS in three of them.
