The second round of the NBA playoffs start for four teams, with two games in Monday’s DFS fantasy basketball competitions. Get your team in the game with FanSided’s FanDuel daily picks.
The first round of the NBA playoffs officially ended on Sunday, with the Jazz taking down the Clippers in a frankly odd Game 7. The second round started just before that, with the Celtics (and Isaiah Thomas’ tooth) taking down the Wizards in Game 1. The second round continues on Monday, with the Raptors opening at the Cavaliers at 7:00 PM ET and the Rockets traveling to San Antonio at 9:30 PM ET. With such a short slate of games, there will be a lot of player overlap across teams. However, there is still value to be had and ways to separate your team from the competition.
The two positions with the most high-end talent on Monday are shooting guard and small forward, with two elite options in each. Shooting guard has more solid depth in the value areas, though, while small forward is extremely sparse after the top two. Point guard also is strong, with two near-top-tier options and two solid value guys. Power forward has three second tier guys, then a lot of risks outside of that. And center has no real elite talents going, but potentially four or five reasonable options to consider. All told, there are decisions to be made at every position that we will help you have the information to work through.
My favorite plays of the day can be found on the following slides in FanSided’s FanDuel daily picks. Each day in order to offer a variety of price points at each position, you can find two slides for each position–one for high-salary options and one for high-value options. Each pick is ranked on a scale of 1-5 stars to indicate the confidence in the pick. The final slide of this post has more detail on what each level means, but in short, more stars means more confidence in the selection on a points-per-dollar basis.
Important note, every day the goal of this post is not to give you a copy-and-paste lineup. Instead, each selection is given while highlighting the factors you need to consider when building a customized lineup for yourself. If you want to see an example lineup, you can find it on the final slide of the post, but I suggest you adjust your lineup to fit your personal taste.
To keep up with all of FanSided’s DFS NBA coverage head over to the fantasy basketball hub where each day you can find a post like this tailored for FanDuel as well as one specifically designed for usage on DraftKings. In this post, all salary and “fantasy points” references are to FanDuel’s scoring system and salaries. If you have any additional questions or thoughts or are looking for updates as we approach tipoff, follow @FanSidedFantasy on Twitter or you can follow my account @ProfessorDrz.
Let’s take a look at your best options for both studs and value players at each position.