The Golden Nugget

Melo giving his owners a 32 PRA was nice although I expected more of him knowing that he would be heavily counted on Game 3. Chandler was a better pick for that day with 25 PRA instead of J.R. Smith in my opinion. The Mavs also lost which puts them at a 0-3 deficit. Based on statistics, it shows that NONE of the NBA teams who were down 0-3 ever came back to win a playoff series; this means we will crown a new NBA champion.

We have three games in schedule for tonight, two of which are currently tied at 1-1 and the remaining one has a 2-0 lead over the other team. As for me, I will go with the safer pick by going with the Denver Nuggets. The Bulls/Sixers game will be monitored closely for scenario purposes in my head and the Celtics/Hawks series seems to be going in favor of the Celts. Kudos to those who picked a Hawk on the first two games as it really looks like that they might get eliminated since Josh Smith is questionable to play. Rondo will also play with a vengeance in Game 3 after not playing in Game 2 due to the one game suspension he drew from the league. Joe Johnson is also a good pick for tonight if you are confident that the Hawks will lose to the C's.

Picking a Nugget came down to Ty Lawson and Danilo Gallinari. Lawson had a superb game last time out with 25 points and a total of 33 PRA while Gallo had a modest 21 PRA. But the clincher for me went down in Game 1 as Lawson only had 10 PRA compared to Gallo's 25, another thing to notice while comparing the two is that Gallo had 18 shot attempts and Lawson had 17. If Gallo attempts 18 shot attempts and makes half or more of it, it could lead his owners to a 25+ PRA. Lawson on Game 2 made 11-17 on the field. If I am Mike Brown, I would try to focus my attention more on Lawson on Game 3 since he nearly brought Denver back in the fourth quarter of Game 2 and almost stole a win in Staples.

Instead of going with a high-risk/high-reward pick in Lawson, I chose the steady 20+ PRA of Danilo Gallinari for tonight's games. I feel that they might also win a home game and I hope that they win Game 3 since they will get beaten in this series anyway. Also, the Lakers has their own problems on the road (Remember the Pistons and the Wizards game?). My projected stats for him would be 18 points, 6 rebounds, 1 assist.