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Player Points: Season Average Versus Recent Play

Bradley Beal, Naz Reid, Jaden McDaniels, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, and Aaron Gordon all have one thing in common - they’re playing great ball right now. All 5 players have massive differences in their points per game recently compared to their season average. We highlighted the difference for each player in the chart below and broke down their matchup tonight to answer the question; can they stay hot?

We’re going to highlight three players from the chart above: Bradley Beal, Naz Reid, and Aaron Gordon.

Bradley Beal

In 5 of his last 6 games, Bradley Beal has 20 or more points and had 19 in the other. In 4 of his last 6, he has 25 or more.

Kevin Durant has played in all those games, and Devin Booker only missed one. So their absences haven’t contributed to Beal’s recent success. It’s Beal’s field goal percentage that has set him up for success - he’s shot 50% from the field and 40.4% from three this season, but in this 6-game stretch, those percentages have jumped to 57.6% and 41.3%.

Beal gets the Pelicans tonight, who hold shooting guards to the 3rd worst 3-point percentage in the NBA (27.48%), the 4th worst field-goal percentage (38.3%), and rank 14th in shooting guard defense by points per game (21.91). But in their last 5 games, that has ticked up to 23.84 points (21st).

Also, Beal scored 24 points against New Orleans earlier this season and had 30 against them last season.

He has a good matchup tonight, and a points line of 18.5 - does he go over once again?

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Naz Reid

Naz Reid’s average over his last 10 games is 21.5, and his average over his last 5 is an even better 23.0. If you put those numbers up against his season average of 14.9, you can make the argument that he’s been the best bet in the NBA over this recent stretch of games.

The main contributor to Reid’s success is minutes; this season he’s averaged 27.3, and over his last 10 games that has skyrocketed to 37.0. In every one of those games, Reid has played 32 minutes or more, and his minute splits are expectedly drastic.

His points line tonight is 20.5, and when he plays 31 or fewer minutes he averages 12.7 points and has cleared this 20.5 line in just 7% of his games. But when he plays 32 or more minutes, he averages 21.4 points and has cleared this line in 71% of his games.

And then there are injuries to consider. Both Rudy Gobert and Julius Randle remain out for Minnesota tonight, and in his 4 games without them this season (all during this stretch), he’s averaged 23.3 points.

Does Reid stay hot with his increased minutes in the absence of Randle and Gobert?

Aaron Gordon

Post all-star break Gordon has been a problem for his opponents - he’s averaging 22.3 points in the three games since the break, a fry cry from his 9.3 average this season.

We can draw similarities between Gordon’s recent surge and Beal’s - Gordon is shooting 51.6% from the field this season and 43.1% from three, but over his last three games those averages have jumped to 62.0% (FG) and 52% (from three). Can that continue tonight?

His matchup doesn’t scream success, but it is manageable. Milwaukee allows the 12th-ranked three-point percentage to power forwards (26.99%) and are 16th in field goal percentage (44.79%) to power forwards. The Bucks are also 16th in restricted zone defense, where Gordon scores a whopping 46% of his points.

And over their last 5 games, the Bucks are allowing 24.51 points per game to power forwards, good for 20th in the NBA. A pretty big falloff from their average of 20.59 points per game, which ranks 4th in the NBA.

As for how power forwards have performed recently against their betting lines versus Milwaukee - that also plays into their advantage. 58% of power forwards have gone over their point line against Milwaukee in their last 10 games.

Does Gordon have a chance to continue to stay hot tonight and go over his 13.5-point line once again?

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See you Tuesday!