NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Tuesday March 20
Welcome to the Tuesday edition of NBA DFS Picks and Pivots, a fantasy basketball column focused on helping you find the best core lineup for this slate of DFS action!
For those of you finding us for the first time, the concept behind NBA DFS Picks and Pivots is to give you a first look at the day’s NBA DFS slate, including our top picks, plays and pivots, using FantasyDraft pricing as a reference, to help you build your best line-up and win big!
Picks and Pivots is not a simple “best plays” column but rather it focuses on slate strategy and roster construction to help give you insight into how I will look to play this slate.
Monday’s NBA DFS was less about who played and more about who didn’t as seven minutes after lock we got the out of nowhere news that one of the most heavily owned plays on the slate in Tyreke Evans was scratched in a great match-up versus the Nets. On the court it is not surprising that the two biggest stars of the night were atop the leaderboard as LeBron James (77) and Giannis Antetokounmpo (60) were two of the top three fantasy producers on the night.
The Nuggets-Heat game was one of my favorite targets on the board last night for the sole reason that both teams had everything to play for and if you had some exposure to this 2OT game then you likely found your way well above the cash line. James Johnson matched Giannis with 60 fantasy points, Kelly Olynyk (58), Nikola Jokic (58) and Will Barton (45) all went off in their expanded minutes in a game that mostly everyone over-looked in tournaments.
The one biggest takeaway I have from last night when you combined the Tyreke Evans news and how the Miami-Denver game played out – JUST PLAY PLAYERS/TEAM WITH SOMETHING TO PLAY FOR. Seriously, it may be that simple as we head down the stretch – isolate the teams with something left to play for and just ignore the rest as those are prime spots for a letdown, late scratches and bankroll drains!
Picks and Pivots is not a simple “best plays” column but rather it focuses on slate strategy and roster construction to help give you insight into how I will look to play this slate. The goal of this article is to dig through the slate, highlight our top plays and help you identify the best slate strategy across your NBA DFS line-ups.
As always, we will look to update our final lineup thoughts prior to lock on our twitter account @FantasyCPR so make sure to give us a follow for all the late breaking lineup news.
Without further ado, let’s get into today’s slate!
NBA DFS – Where to start on this slate:
Tuesday’s NBA schedule kicks off at 7PM EST with Toronto and Orlando but both FanDuel and FantasyDraft have opted to ignore that game and start the NBA DFS Main Slate at 8PM EST which includes six total games.
I mentioned this in the open and harped on it yesterday, but my focus as we head down the stretch in the NBA is going to be to target teams in the playoff race as we know we can count on those teams/players to play their full allotment of minutes and we can avoid bankroll killing late scratches for teams with nothing to play for and/or tanking (yes I am looking at you Memphis).
Of the twelve teams in action tonight only four teams are essentially out of the playoff picture including the Suns, Mavericks, Pistons and Hawks so to the extent we can fade them or use them as secondary pieces only, it makes for the ideal strategy ESPECIALLY if they become chalk.
Yesterday as an example it was really interesting to see how the Chicago Bulls plays became SUPER popular across the industry as everyone seemed to jump on the value and match-up against the Knicks especially when it came to Denzel Valentine and Cameron Payne. As I completed my roster builds yesterday, Payne was someone I had in initially but when I needed some additional salary I kept asking myself – do I really NEED to force in a Bulls player in this spot? Yes, I get the match-up and the perceived value but are we really going to force in the third string point guard on the Bulls? Ultimately that hesitation and rather simple question led me to fade the Bulls entirely and on this night it worked out as only one player (Bobby Portis) even cracked 30 fantasy points.
Sometimes folks, there is a reason these players are cheap to roster.
Why do I bring this up today? The Suns-Pistons game is the only game on this slate between two teams completely out of it and it is one of only two games without a spread as of this morning due to the injuries to Devin Booker and T.J. Warren. On the Pistons side, the match-up could not be better against the Suns and on the Phoenix side there should be a whole lot of usage and value assuming Warren and Booker sit (which I expect they will).
No official injury report, but T.J. Warren didn't practice and was limping pretty noticeably on sprained left knee. Can't imagine he'll play Tuesday. Booker said he doesn't know if he'll be able to go. Limited participant in practice today.
— scott bordow (@sbordow) March 19, 2018
Listen, I can get the argument for Andre Drummond or Blake Griffin and we have certainly seen the upside with Josh Jackson this year as a starter but this is the absolute perfect game environment for a whole lot of who cares basketball. The game means nothing and we have plenty of other game environments that mean a whole lot tonight so there is merit to just crossing this game off entirely and letting everyone chase the Suns defense and all the “value” opening up on the Suns side with their top two scorers likely out.
NBA DFS – Core Build:
The Western Conference playoff standings right now are a jumbled mess as the Thunder sitting in the #4 spot are only 2.5 games up on the #8 seeded Timberwolves and we cannot forget that the Clippers and Nuggets right now site 2 games out of the playoffs with the critical need to win EVERY single game.
Tonight, the Clippers who sit in the #9 spot only 2 games behind Minnesota in the #8 hole get the chance to gain a game directly as these teams play head to head tonight. THIS my friends is the exact game environment I am going after tonight and every time it comes my way for the rest of the NBA season as we know that both teams are going to give everything they have in what amounts to a must win in some cases .
Oh by the way – this game also has the highest total (227) and only a three-point spread. Yeah, I am all in kids.
There are some interesting metrics here as well as over the last ten games the Clippers are 5th in the NBA in pace while Minnesota has the fourth worst defensive rating in the entire league.
On the Minnesota side this is the perfect spot to stack when you consider the magnitude of this game and the fact that the Timberwolves play their starters with the most consistent 30-35 minutes of basically any team in the NBA.
Over the last month with Jimmy Butler out there are only two player on Minnesota that are putting up over a FP/M of production as Karl-Anthony Towns ($17.8K) and Jeff Teague ($12.5K) are putting up 1.3 and 1.2 FP/M respectively. KAT hs put up 50+ fantasy points in two of his last six meetings with the Clippers while Teague is coming off a monster 52 fantasy point game against Chris Paul and the Rockets which will surely draw ownership his way.
The other starters on Minnesota are solid but maybe fringe plays on this slate as you are counting on low usage guys like Taj Gibson and Nemanja Bjelica, who are both under 15% usage rates the last month, or one-dimensional plays like Andrew Wiggins to carry you. For my liking, I will use this three as last guys in rather than core plays and frankly could argue someone like Jamal Crawford ($7.2K) is a better option off the bench as he is locked into his 20-25 minutes a game, has double-digit shot attempts in two of his last three outing and is coming off a 28 fantasy point outing against the Rockets.
On the Clippers side, much like their opponents, the core is pretty easy to lock in on here as you have a team running essentially a 7 man rotation with two of those players – Sindarius Thornwell and Milos Teodosic being low usage, low FP/M producers we can likely avoid.
So that leaves us with the two big men in the starting line-up as DeAndre Jordan ($14.1K) and Tobias Harris ($14.2K) look to be the best plays amongst the starters as they are putting up 1.3 and 1.1 FP/M over the last month of the season. With Milos back in the starting line-up it puts Lou Williams ($13.5K) back in his sixth man role which is exactly where you want him from a DFS perspective as the bench role tends to keep his ownership down and he dominates the usage and production running the second unit.
If you are looking for a punt pivot from this game, look no further than Montrezl Harrell ($8.2K) who is one of the few bench players on the Clippers (besides Lou Will) who gets minutes albeit at a much less consistent level. Harrell is a boom or bust GPP option with considerable upside as his 28% usage rate and 1.28 FP/M output over the last month shows and on FanDuel where he is only $4.3K at PF, he makes for one of my favorite value plays on the night.
NBA DFS – Pivot Plays:
There are two other teams out West that are fighting for playoff positions tonight abd although their opponents are long eliminated, there are plays to be found in Utah and New Orleans tonight.
The Jazz get the biggest point boost tonight, expected to score nearly 8 points more than their season average as they take on the Atlanta Hawks who are dead last in defensive rating in the NBA over the last five games.
There are a few factors that may lead to this game being a bit under-owned as we have a 13.5 point spread which screams blowout risk and the game log watchers will head back to the January meeting between these two teams were the Jazz could only muster 90 points and only one player went for over 30 fantasy points as Rudy Gobert went for 34.5.
Donovan Mitchell ($13.4K) floundered in this spot earlier this season as he only managed 14 FP over 31 minutes of court time and has only gone for over 50 fantasy points one time since the beginning of February so some may question his upside at this price point. Add in the fact that the Jazz are massive favorites and we could see incredibly low ownership here but the Jazz are in a spot right now where a loss could crush their playoff positioning and even a minor slip could leave them out of the playoffs entirely with the Nuggets/Clippers on the tail.
The last real “blow-out” game the Jazz had been against the Suns back on March 15th where even with a 28 point win, Mitchell still played 36 minutes, shot the ball 21 times and racked up 41 fantasy points. The Hawks are giving up the 5th most points to opposing PG’s/SG’s over the last five games so the upside to absolutely crush in this match-up is evident and I think there are enough factors (price/Vegas line) that are working towards pushing his ownership down.
The Pelicans are tied with the Jazz right now in the West and will take on a Mavericks team they just faced back on March 4th where multiple players had big time nights. Anthony Davis (57) and Jrue Holiday (43) were not surprisingly the top two scorers from the Pelicans but it was some of the secondary pieces that really crushed in this match-up and tonight sit at bargain price points.
Cheick Diallo ($7.2K) went OFF against the Mavericks in this game with 13 points, 15 rebounds and 40 fantasy points in only 23 minutes of court time and is at/near minimum priced on both FantasyDraft and FanDuel where he is $3.5K. Diallo is a tournament only play but the upside is simply through the roof as he has hit 6x value on a site like FanDuel in 3 of his last 7 games. The key for Diallo is his minutes – in each of the games he has played 20+ minutes during that stretch he has crushed value and considering this is a match-up the coaching staff has already seen him dominate, I have no issue rolling him out tonight in another must win for New Orleans. Ian Clark ($7.1K) is another value play for New Orleans who just continues to excel in his sixth man role, playing 20-30 minutes a night with a steady floor of production.
With the second highest team total on the slate tonight, the Pelicans look like a team you can build around as your core or opt to use some of the secondary value pieces as fill ins around your roster.
NBA DFS – Slate Overview and Sample Line-Up
Please Note: This is NOT an optimized line-up, it is simply illustrative to show the type of roster build we can have using the logic previously laid out in Picks and Pivots. My actual line-up may differ from the line-up shown here.
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FanDuel NBA DFS Sample Line-Up:
PG: Jeff Teague ($7,000)
PG: Rajon Rondo ($5,800)
SG: Lou Williams ($7,100)
SG Donovan Mitchell ($8,300)
SF: Trevor Ariza ($5,000)
SF: Maurice Harkless ($4,000)
PF: Tobias Harris ($7,700)
PF: Montrezl Harrell ($4,300)
C: Karl-Anthony Towns ($10,500)
Slate Overview: Play teams with something to play for. It is that simple. Listen, I am fine if you want to make the cases for one-off plays like a Josh Jackson tonight assuming Booker/Warren sit but I just see no reason to assume the risk like we saw last night with Tryeke Evans were teams with nothing to play for completely destroy your night. The Clippers/Wolves game has massive playoff implications and the Jazz/Pelicans simply have to keep winning so why bother guessing on plays when I can lock in-game environments where I know the core plays will be locked into their usual minutes. Keep it simple baby.
Next: WGC Match Play - DFS Golf Picks and Slate Overview
Best of luck in your NBA DFS contests across FantasyDraft and FanDuel and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest DFS news and analysis!