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Happy Hump Day everyone! It’s been a rough few days in the NBA Playoff DFS Streets for me but hopefully tonight we can all turn it around. We have a full sports calendar with NBA and NHL Playoffs going on and the PGA Tour coming to my area for the Wells Fargo Championship. If you’re planning on attending Friday, let me know as I’ll be there sweating the action live. Tonight we get another two game NBA Slate so let’s see what edges we can uncover.
INJURIES
- Tyler Herro – Q
- Max Strus – Q
- Gabe Vincent – Q
- PJ Tucker – Q
- Caleb Martin – Q
For some reason Miami continues to list half their team as questionable, even though we fully expect them all to play. There doesn’t seem to be much injury news we’re waiting on but we do want to monitor starting lineups as that could change the minutes projections for a number of players.
GUARDS
Obviously one of my favorite spend-up plays at guard is Luca Doncic. He does get a tough match-up on the road against Phoenix, but Luca is doing it all for this team and should the game stay competitive it’ll be because Luca is smashing. Just last game Luca played 44 minutes and with no other spend-ups over $10K, we need to start most line-ups with Luca tonight. One idea if you decide to fade Luca is fade the Phoenix vs. Dallas game all together and stack the early game in hopes it’s close and high scoring. The only way I see Luca failing is in a blowout, in which case most of the plays from the Dallas vs. Phoenix game would under perform. I may set a rule that if Luca isn’t in my line-up to force 5 to 6 plays from the early game. The other Guard that should be chalky on this slate is Devin Booker. The price tag on Booker is just a bit too cheap at $8,200 on DK. Throughout a lot of the season Booker was priced in the $9K range so we’re getting quite a discount and he looks to be off any sort of minutes limit with this being his third game back from injury. We can safely project him for around 40 minutes in this spot and he’s projecting out as my favorite play on the slate.
FORWARDS
If we’re going to be spending up for Luca and Booker at Guard we need to find some value at other positions. I’ve been playing a lot of Max Strus of late and don’t see that changing tonight. Last game he disappointed putting up 11 fantasy points in 33 minutes. On the season, Strus averages right around .8 fantasy points per minute and we can safely project him for over 30 minutes in this spot. On a slate starving for value I don’t mind getting to Strus at a $4,900 price tag. He has some major upside if he can hit his shot and the minutes seem solidified. He also had a Plus/Minus rating of +27 in the first game of this series, which makes me feel more comfortable in the minutes safety. Also, if we look at the game flow tracker of that first game, it looks like he missed potentially 5 minutes of closeout run due to a blowout. I’ll be getting well overweight on Strus in GPPs and don’t mind him as a cash game option as well. The other value Forward I like is Jae Crowder. In the first series with the Pelicans he shot terribly but we saw that start to turn around in the first game vs. the Mavs. He played 28 minutes and put up 27 fantasy points. I think we can see the minutes sneak up a bit and if he’s hitting his threes he looks like a solid value option at $4,800 on DK.
CENTER
At Center I love Bam tonight, although he will be chalky. Bam had his way with the Philly front court on Monday putting up 51 fantasy points in 34 minutes. He also missed about 5 minutes of time due to a blowout. We can safely project Bam for 35 minutes tonight and Philly really has nobody that can match-up with him since Embiid is still out. If we want to look for a cheap large-field GPP play I like getting to Javale McGee. Javale is an elite fantasy point per minute producer but typically only plays back-up Center minutes, which in the playoffs is about 12-14 minutes. Should the Phoenix game turn into a blowout I expect McGee’s minutes to creep up and all we need is an efficient 16 to 18 minutes out of McGee for him to break the slate at a $3,200 price tag. In GPPs I like getting overweight here. I plan on building some teams that play Mcgee and pretty much fade the rest of the Dallas vs. Phoenix game in hopes that it blows out.
It’s not the greatest slate but we do have some playoff basketball with some huge prizes on all sites. The playoffs have been a little wild of late with a lot of injuries and ejections to deal with so hopefully tonight we can get a clean slate for once. Hope everyone enjoys the games this evening.
Cash Plays: Luca Doncic, Devin Booker, Max Strus, Bam Adebayo, Jae Crowder
GPP Plays: Luca Doncic, Devin Booker, Max Strus, Jae Crowder, Javale Mcgee, Deandre Ayton, Spencer Dinwiddie
Max
