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.