NBA Injury Report: Betting, DFS Impact of Lou Williams, Spurs Injuries

There are just three games tonight but still a lot of injuries and questionable players. We’ll analyze two key situations in this piece: the Phoenix Suns at San Antonio Spurs and the Toronto Raptors at Los Angeles Clippers.

Note: The information below is as of 11 a.m. ET. For up-to-the-minute news and analysis, check out our live news feed and follow us on Twitter.

San Antonio Spurs

Injuries: Davis Bertans (personal) is doubtful. Dante Cunningham (abdominal) is probable.

Injury background: Bertans missed Sunday’s game for undisclosed personal reasons. Cunningham was out with a sore abdominal.

Tonight’s impact: Without Cunningham and Bertans on Sunday, Derrick White started. Cunningham was recently replaced in the starting lineup by Bertans, and if Bertans can’t play, Cunningham could garner the start against the Suns.

In two games Cunningham has played with Bertans unavailable, he’s posted 11.25 and 34.25 DraftKings points in 29.7 minutes per game.

Coach Gregg Popovich isn’t married to one starting lineup, nor does he subscribe to static rotations, as he showed in Friday’s win when Rudy Gay, LaMarcus Aldridge and Bryn Forbes didn’t play in the fourth quarter of their comeback win.

It’s also been about a month since Popovich rested any of his players — coincidentally the last time was against the Suns.

The Spurs are 9-4 at home and 4-10 on the road. They are presently favored by 12.5 points at home against the worst team in the NBA. They are also one of the four teams to lose to the Suns this season. Nonetheless, the Suns have lost all eight games Devin Booker (hamstring) hasn’t played this season by an average of 16.5 points.

The first two games between the teams were decided by at least 20 points. DeMar DeRozan played a team-high 28 and 32 minutes in the games, and Patty Mills and Marco Belinelli offered value off the bench.

The Spurs haven’t been favored by double digits yet this season, but when they’ve been favored at home, Mills has supplied a team-high +5.22 DraftKings Plus/Minus at low salaries.

Gay has provided more value than not when the Spurs have been home favorites, averaging 30.61 DraftKings points, and he has led the Spurs with a +5.6% usage rate differential in the three games Bertans missed, per the NBA On/Off tool.

Clippers G Lou Williams (hamstring) is TBD.

Injury background: Williams left during the first half of Monday’s overtime victory after suffering a hamstring injury, and he was ruled out for the rest of the game at the start of the second half.

The Clippers haven’t provided an update on his status for tonight’s game and aren’t required to report anything until 4 p.m. ET.

Tonight’s impact: Williams has been the offensive creator in the second unit, averaging a team-high 4.6 assists per game. He’s played less than 20 minutes three times this season prior to Monday’s setback, and he leads the Clippers in fourth quarter field goal attempts (6.5), scoring (6.7) and usage (34.4%), according to NBA.com.

Tobias Harris spent time with the second unit in Monday’s second half once Williams was ruled out. Tyrone Wallace and Milos Teodosic rounded out the rotation sans Williams, and the latter commanded the offense once Harris rested. Prior to last night, Teodosic had played four minutes without Williams. That projects to increase if Williams can’t go tonight.

The closing lineup last night was the starters with Patrick Beverley replacing Boban Marjanovic and Danilo Gallinari acting as the de facto center. Those five also played the entire overtime, and even though he had only two fouls, Montrezl Harrell was glued to the bench.

Harrell has registered a -10.2% effective field goal differential without Williams this year. Williams has assisted Harrell 47 times, while the rest of the team has combined for 64 of Harrell’s assisted baskets — led by 12 from Beverley.

Harrell has averaged 7.0 fewer points per 36 minutes when Williams hasn’t been on the court, and he’s increased his shot attempts taken outside the restricted area.

In the four games the Clippers have played on zero days rest, they’ve led the NBA with a 123.7 Offensive Rating but ranked 26th with a 117.1 Defensive Rating, according to Cleaning the Glass.

In that four-game small sample, Harris has averaged a team-high 39.5 DraftKings points per game and shot a ridiculous 64.4% from the field. The matchup tonight is unenviable opposite Kawhi Leonard, but it’s possible Leonard will rest the first game of the Raptors’ back-to-back.