Where things start to get tricky

It was nice to see 17 points coming from Gordon Hayward yesterday but he only had 3 rebounds and 2 assists; totally not what I have in mind but at least he got a 20+ PRA. I have already picked 2 rotation players and have a total of 51 PRA while those who picked Melo and Al Jeff on the first 2 days only have 53 PRA. Not bad considering I only trail them 2 points AND not investing on top-tier players. From a fantasy perspective, the main headline from all of the games yesterday was the ejection of Rajon Rondo as he accidentally tripped on the referee's foot and inadvertently bumped the guy. I am reading a couple of news via the internet that Rondo may be suspended for one game because of the incident - which means that a Celtic player will be my next target if a suspension is handed on the Celtics point guard.

We have three games in schedule for tonight: Knicks/Heat, Magic/Pacers and Mavericks/Thunder. Looking at the schedule for the upcoming games, May 3 has only 2 games in Heat/Knicks and Thunder/Mavs. If I want to use Melo on a home game, I would save him for that date since the injury on Shumpert will definitely be an advantage for the Heat. Shumpert was arguably their best perimeter defender and their best point guard with Baron Davis, Mike Bibby and Toney Douglas on board. With that in mind, the chances of the Knicks losing this series becomes greater and news about Jeremy Lin coming back for Game 4 might be true. For the Magic/Pacers series, I would not touch any of the players from both teams since the Magic won Game 1.

Picking a Mavs player crossed my mind when I saw the schedule of the Thunder/Mavs series. Their Game 3 coincides with the Pacers/Magic Game 4, Grizzlies/Clippers Game 3 and Spurs/Jazz Game 3. On this day, I might pick Al Jeff depending on what happens on their Game 2 but it is evident that the Spurs are determined to reach round 2 in a hurry to get an extended period of rest. The Clippers/Grizzlies series is fun to watch and I think this series will go the distance; the best thing to do is to wait and see what happens to this. The Pacers/Magic game is also fun to watch but I think that the Magic will win one at their home court and the Pacers winning the series by 6.

Cutting to the chase, if I will play it conservatively and pick a rotation player instead of a superstar, I might regret it in the end because I need to reach 200-300 points at the end of the first round to be in contention to other players of this game. So for today's games, I am going with Dirk Nowitzki. It was a heartbreaking Game 1 loss but they know that they can actually beat this team just like last year. As for me, I think that this would be Thunder in 5, the Mavs need to win Game 2 to get momentum for Game 3 so Dirk Nowitzki will do his best to keep this team up-float. I also expect the Thunder to slow Dirk down; they don't want to have the series tied at 1-1 with the Mavs returning to their home court at Games 3 and 4.

I am expecting 30+ PRA for Dirk, I hope he doesn't disappoint. My projected stats for him would be 24pts, 8rebs, 3asts.

Keep on Rollin'

I was surprised to see my pick Jameer Nelson get a 29 PRA but the Magic stole a win on the road against Indy and in the fourth quarter, the Magic scored 11 straight to gain the upper hand. Simply put, Granger CHOKED by missing 2 FT's and missing an open layup To those who picked Ryan Anderson and Carmelo Anthony, there are better days ahead of you guys so do not get discouraged about their performance. By the way, Derrick Rose went down with an ACL injury as well as Iman Shumpert - this is something to take note of in Heat/Knicks Game 2 if you guys want to pick a Knick. Without a doubt, the best pick for this day was Derrick Rose since this is his only game in the playoffs and he went for 23pts, 9rebs, 9asts good for 41 PRA.

Onto Sunday's game, there are 4 playoff games on schedule: Spurs/Jazz, Nuggets/Lakers, Celtics/Hawks, Clippers/Grizzlies. The last 3 games are too close to call since the bottom seeded teams can eke out a win. With the Spurs/Jazz match, I think the Jazz might win a game but that is it, the Spurs have learned about what happened last year when they were eliminated by the 8th seeded Grizzlies and the experience factor will come into play. Looking at the Jazz' roster, I saw 3 guys that are worthy of a pick: Gordon Hayward, Al Jefferson and Paul Millsap. The most obvious choice would be Al Jeff right? Because of the three, he has the most experience AND he can manhandle the bigs of the Spurs - namely DeJuan Blair and Tiago Splitter. Tim Duncan would also guard him and Splitter might guard Millsap because Duncan will not catch up on Millsap's speed.

I want to go with Al Jeff but with the Spurs having fresh legs I opted to save Al Jeff for a home game which would be a crucial game 3 or an elimination game in 4. Millsap also plays better at home and that leaves me with Gordon Hayward; with this being his first playoff game, I am not sure that he will get about 20 PRA and their coach might play Miles and Bell for defensive purposes or having to start Josh Howard because of experience. However, on Utah's only win against the Spurs in the regular season, Hayward posted 16pts, 6rebs, 4asts.

I am hoping for Hayward to come out strong early against a Spurs team that might save their energy for the second half. My projected stat for Hayward would be 12pts, 6rebs, 3asts. If he gets a 19 PRA or lower, this will be a bad pick for me.

Lets get this thing started!

To start off, I am not picking any players from the Thunder/Mavs and Heat/Knicks until they reach a crucial game. That leaves me with Bulls/76ers and Pacers/Magic, from that 2 series the team that might be swept in an instant is the Orlando Magic. The Pacers will get a lot of baskets inside AND they have three very good perimeter defenders in Paul George, Danny Granger and George Hill. From the looks of it, this might be the only game that the Magic would get about 8-10 three pointers since the Pacers will use this game to adjust more in their defensive scheme.

As for the 76ers/Bulls series, the one that I would be confident to pick is Andre Iguodala but I would rather save him for a home game than this one with Brewer definitely guarding him.

I have thought of picking Ryan Anderson for game 1 because of the matchup problem that he will present against David West who is not a good defender. However, Ryan Anderson plays better at home and for that, I would save him for either game 3 or 4. This leaves me with Glen Davis or Jameer Nelson, Glen Davis plays better on the road but with tall Roy Hibbert and Athletic Tyler Hansbrough, there might not be a lot of touches for him to score. Thus, I am picking Jameer Nelson because he might be asked to score more and create more opportunities for his other teammates; which only means that he will touch the ball A LOT. And since we are not counting turnovers, I am down with Jameer clunking shots and turning the ball over.

Lastly, since this is the first day of the playoffs, a 20+ pra will be good to start my fantasy season. My projected stats for Jameer will be 14pts 3rebs 6asts

Hello!

Hello and thanks for reading my blog about this year's NBA Drive to the Finals game here at nba.com. The objective of this game is easy, you just need to select one player each day that you think would have the highest PRA (points, rebounds, assists) of all the players who are playing in that day. For example, you selected Tim Duncan against the Utah Jazz; after the game is finished, we total Tim Duncan's points, rebounds and assists to get your daily score. If you failed to select a player for the day, you will not get any score.

The percentile rank is based on the number of players in this game, so if you belong to the 95% and above; it means that you are doing very well in this game.

What's challenging in this game is that once you selected a specific player from a team, you cannot select him again for the rest of the playoff season. Some players in this game go with their gut as to who will have the highest score for the day and some relies on matchups as well as the importance of the game in the series. It might be the pivotal game in a 7 game series or a do-or-die match.

Please pardon my english and grammar since I am not an american but I would try my best to keep you updated. I would also post here my picks for each day so that you guys would see which player I am banking on to win this. I might not be eligible for the prize(since I am not from United States) but I am playing this just for the love of basketball and friendly competition. I would also love to read your comments and suggestions as to who to pick.

Hope you guys would also have fun and good luck to all of you!