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It’s been a fun start to the NBA Playoffs with a few series that may go seven games. Last night I came close in the big $20 dollar GPP on Draftkings and ended up finishing 10th after all the stat corrections, turning $20 into $1,500. These playoffs are somewhat easy to predict and I do feel like I’m getting close to a really big night. Tonight we get a fun 3 game slate with all three games being pivotal game 6’s. Toronto, Utah and New Orleans are all facing elimination at home so I’m expecting three close games with all the Vegas spreads under 3 points.
INJURIES
- Fred VanVleet – D
- Devin Booker – O/D
VanVleet and Booker are both not expected to play so I’m going to move forward with the assumption they sit. Keep an eye for the injury report though as it’s an elimination game for Toronto so it wouldn’t surprise me if VanVleet tried to gut it out tonight.
GUARDS
This slate, as most NBA Playoff slates is starved for value. This makes paying up for Luca Doncic at $11,000 extremely difficult. My favorite spend-up at guard is CJ Mccollum at an affordable $8,600 price tag. CJ is locked into 40ish minutes a night and the Pelicans come home to what should be a raucous atmosphere in NOLA. Mccollum has gone over 40 fantasy points in 4 of the 5 games this series so he seems safe with some upside if his shot is falling. The other Guard play I like if we want some value is Gary Trent. Trent is playing big minutes and sees a usage bump with VanVleet off the court. On the season Trent is at .95 fantasy points per minute without VanVleet and should be looking at 40+ minutes as one of the only guards expected to get playing time for Toronto tonight. The match-up with Philly isn’t ideal but if we’re going with a mid-range build, Trent seems like a solid play at $6,500 on DK.
FORWARDS
At Forward I like Scottie Barnes, but I do expect him to be somewhat chalky. He’s back to playing 40 minutes a night and is at .93 fantasy points per minute with VanVleet off the floor. The price tag is reasonable at $6,200 and we’ve seen Barnes go for over 60 fantasy points multiple times this year so there’s a ceiling here for GPPs. I’ll be making sure to get overweight as I’m leaning towards more of a mid-range build this early in the day. The other forward I like this evening is Cam Johnson. The minutes seem to be trending up at the expense of Jae Crowder. He’s played 32 and 37 minutes the last two games and somewhat underwhelmed with fantasy point totals of 26 and 25 in those games. He’s been in somewhat of a shooting funk this series but on the season Cam Johnson is close to a fantasy point per minute player with Booker off the court. If he sees 35+ minutes again he projects out for me as one of the best plays of the slate.
CENTER
Center always has so many options and tonight is no different. Embiid is the highest priced Center at $10,400. I’ve been fading him this series as he hasn’t played well historically versus Toronto and I expect to again be underweight on Embiid tonight. My favorite Center play is Rudy Gobert who’s expected to garner less than 20% ownership on a 3 game slate. Gobert has dealt with foul trouble and blowouts which is why his minutes are all over the place in this series. I’m expecting a solid effort from Utah in an elimination game and think there’s a chance Rudy gets extended minutes tonight in this spot (assuming he stays out of foul trouble). At low ownership Rudy is my favorite Center GPP play on the board.
These three game slates are surprisingly fun with more options then you’d expect for having six teams with condensed rotations. These should all be great games so hopefully the kiddos will let me watch some basketball tonight. If I don’t bink tonight hopefully one of my readers takes down something big!
Cash Plays: CJ Mccollum, Gary Trent, Cam Johnson, Bojan Bogdanovic, Scottie Barnes, Precious Achiuwa
GPP Plays: CJ Mccollum, Rudy Gobert, Luca Doncic, Pascal Siakam, Brandon Ingram, Jose Alvarado
Max
