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Today, I’ll be projecting the expected points, rebounds and assists for Kevin Durant in Friday’s Game 4 versus the Cleveland Caviliers. Durant is one of three guys (LeBron James/Draymond Green) in the “Awesemo.com Presents: $1,000,000 Perfect Line Bonus + $7,500 GTD – The BIG Dipper” tournament on PlayLine.
Your PlayLine predictions are scored according to the charts below. It’s really simple. The closer your PlayLine is to the athlete’s actual performance, the more points you get. The more points you get, the better your chances of winning!
You will receive PlayLine points each time the featured athlete registers a stat that you predicted will occur. Once the athlete’s actual stat total in a particular category goes over your prediction, you will no longer receive additional per stat PlayLine points.
Kevin Durant
Durant was exceptional in Game 3, putting up 43 points, 13 rebounds and 7 assists as the Warriors put themselves on the doorstep of a finals sweep. The Vegas line for Game 4 is currently GSW -4.5, which is one point higher than the closing line for Game 3. While it’s difficult to project a line similar to his Game 3 performance, I’m certainly leaning on the side of another large Durant game to close out the Cavaliers. First, let’s take a look at Durant’s baseline stats from this season.
Average: 27.0 points, 5.2 assists, 7.0 rebounds
Standard Deviations: 7.3 points, 2.4 assists, 2.8 rebounds
In general, you should be aiming to be within 1.5 deviations of the average. I would start my build in the following range:
Points: 16 to 38
Assists: 1 to 9
Rebounds: 2 to 12
If you read my article from this past Sunday on statistical correlations for PlayLine contests, you‘ll know that it makes sense to adjust your projections based on the correlation of points/rebounds/assists. For this season, Kevin Durant had the following correlations.
Points x Rebounds: 0.27
Points x Assists: -0.04
Assists x Rebounds: 0.06
Based on this season, there doesn’t appear to be much of a relationship between Durant‘s points and assists, or his assists and rebounds. His points and rebounds, however, have a sizeable positive correlation. If you’re expecting a big night from Durant, I would recommend pushing his rebounds up with his scoring rate.
I have a hard time believing the Cavaliers hold off the sweep. This feels eerily similar to the final game for LeBron in Miami against the Spurs. I think Durant wants to close this out right now, with an eye on Finals MVP trophy. With that said, I’ll be looking to land slightly higher than Durant’s season averages. My placeholder for Durant right now is 31 points, 9 rebounds and 4 assists. That should be enough to push the Warriors to the sweep and their third championship in the past four seasons.
