After missing a few games to start the season, Draymond Green returned with a pass-first mindset that has translated into wins. Averaging a career high in assist rate and a career low in usage, Green is barely looking at the basket if its not a wide open attempt.
He has only cleared this line once from seven games this season and despite Denver’s mediocre defence, he will struggle to top it tonight.
Trae Young had a blazing hot start to the season, driven heavily by his historic free throw rate.
Through the first four games Young averaged more than 15 free throws a game, a number that has dropped to just over 6 in the past six games, dropping his scoring from 33ppg to 19ppg in that time period.
Against Chris Paul he will again be unlikely to draw the same types of fouls he did early in the season and will struggle to clear this line.
After a frustrating season behind DeAndre Jordan, Steve Nash has finally realised that Jarrett Allen is significantly better.
Now the starting center and playing 30+ minutes a game, Allen is regularly producing, clearing this line each of the past five games.
His opponent, the Denver Nuggets, currently rank 25th in the league in defensive rating and 28th in defensive rebounding rate, indicating they will struggle to keep Allen off the glass.
De’Andre Hunter had an up and down rookie season with Atlanta but has really come into his own in his sophomore year.
Shooting the ball better and being more active across the court, in his past five games Hunter has averaged 20ppg on sustainable shooting numbers.
Against a depleted Philly team, Hunter will likely get a favourable matchup and look to take advantage early and often.
Scoring guard Zach Lavine has had a solid start to the season averaging a career high 26ppg. While he is relatively efficient for a volume scorer, some of his better games have come at unsustainable shooting rates.
Against the Clippers he will face the best wing defenders in the league in Kawhi Leonard and Paul George. While the shots might be there, we expect them to be heavily contested and find it unlikely he shoots the 50%+ required to clear this line.
Bojan Bogdanovic has had an absolutely terrible start to the 2020-21 season.
Through the first three games while his shooting was poor, the minutes and shots were at similar levels to last year when he averaged 20.2ppg. Since then however his minutes, shots, free throw attempts and FG% has trended down aggressively.
Against the Bucks, it will be hard for him to turn it around. In previous seasons they have allowed three’s and walled off the paint but this season they’re playing a more traditional defence which will leave less room for Bogdanovich to break his slump.
Will Barton has been hit and miss all season for the Denver Nuggets. With the emergence of Michael Porter Jr, his role has become murky, and complicating matters are his performances – swinging wildly between bench sparkplug and absolute trash.
With Porter Jr returning from a three game absence due to quarantine, and JaMychel Green playing well, it is likely that Barton will have his minutes limited and will struggle to clear this line.
The once maligned Lonzo Ball has been quietly improving since leaving the bright lights of Los Angeles to New Orleans.
Ball is shooting it better than ever and playing off Brandon Ingram and Zion Williamson he is getting good looks and capitalising on them.
Against a young OKC team Ball should have no worries clearing this line that he has covered in 5/7 games so far this season.
Nikola Jokic has started the season in MVP form offensively, but much of that comes from his passing and this line is too high.
While he has racked up astonishing passing numbers, he isn’t looking for his shot with only one game with more than 14 field goals attempted and a drop off in free throws.
Minnesota is not good and Denver blew them out last game, where Jokic scored 19 on 12 shots. We expect a similarly unselfish game from the Serbian star.
Domantas Sabonis had a great start to the season however since his first game his usage has lowered every outing, dropping down to a paltry 16.7% in his last outing.
Against the Pelicans huge front line of Zion Williamson and Steven Adams he won’t be able to bully his way to the basket, and teams have seen the recent success with early double teams.
We expect the Stan Van Gundy coached Pels to employ similar tactics to get the ball out of Sabonis’ hands.
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