NBA DFS Picks and Pivots Monday, January 28 – Beantown Battle
Welcome to the Monday 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 fantasy basketball 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.
Another NBA DFS slate and another night where James Harden drops 70+ fantasy points – rinse and repeat. The return of Chris Paul in limited minutes (25) was enough to allow us to roster The Beard at his lowest ownership in weeks (20-25%) and all he did was continue to put up slate leading scores. Overall, 7 players went for 50+ on this slate with the most surprising and low-owned being Ivica Zubac who took advantage of Tyson Chandler being out and dominated the Suns interior with 24 points, 16 rebounds and 4 blocked shots at only $9.4K of salary!
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 throughout the day 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 – Monday Slate Breakdown:
If you opened up this five game Monday NBA DFS slate hoping for some sexy Vegas totals and a slate full of can’t miss spots – well, you may want to grab a cup of coffee first before you dig in. This slate breakdown is relatively simple – more than half the teams see a projected point decrease off their season average and pace downgrade match-up while two (possible three ones we have the Hawks/Clippers line) will have double-digit spreads – so buckle up kids, this one is going to be a doozy to sort through.
The first big decision you will need to come to tonight is what you intend to do with the slates most expensive player – Nikola Jokic ($19.1K) who considering his recent play, feels a few thousand too cheap here tonight against Memphis. In his last two games, The Joker has put up 70 and 75 fantasy points and now has triple doubles in two of his last three games which makes him the star on this slate with the clear highest ceiling.
The Nuggets will be without Jamal Murray tonight which in theory should push more of the playmaking to the Nuggets big man, but it is interesting that over the last two seasons, with Murray off the court, Jokic has essentially neutral usage and FP/M production. Last game against the Sixers, he actually saw his usage drop slightly (3%) put his 2.16 FP/M more than made up for it against a Joel Embiid-less Sixers front court.
The easy thing to do would be to tell you to lock in Jokic, the reality is the price is more than reasonable enough on FantasyDraft to do so, but let me give you the case for a fade.
Jokic has played against Memphis six times in the last two seasons – and although he has had a 55 and 60 fantasy point outing, he has also been held under 28 fantasy points in three of those meetings.
In a limited sample size against Memphis with Murray off the court these two years (32 minutes), Jokis has only an 18% usage rate while putting up 0.6 FP/M. Even if you bring Murray back on the court, Jokic has a very pedestrian 24% usage rate with 1.2 FP/M (43 FP per 36 minutes).
The Nuggets see the largest pace decrease on the slate and are projected to score only 107 points which is a 4 point decrease off their season average. Memphis, is a top 6 defense in terms of Def-Eff on the season – and these are the recent starting Centers fantasy production against them – Al Horford (25), Willie Cauley-Stein (33), Myles Turner (29), Serge Ibaka (26) and Jahlil Okafor (40).
Now clearly Jokic is playing at a different level and as much as I am arguing the fade, the easier path is simply to lock him in. I think his recent game log and price being under $20K makes him the crazy chalk spend up but remember – he had his big game against Mike Muscala, not exactly the same match-up as tonight – and even if he has his “ceiling” game against Memphis, which has been 55-60 FPTS based off the last two seasons, that just barely pays off his $19.1 price tag (3x is 57+ FPTS) and it would not be a score that I think you HAVE to have.
NBA DFS – Pivot Plays:
From a pure basketball perspective, as a New York basketball fan, I have my eyes squarely set on this Nets/Celtics game tonight in Boston. If you simply play DFS and rarely look at the standings, I would not blame you – but would it surprise you to know the Brooklyn Nets are only 3.5 games behind the Celtics in the Eastern Conference standings?
Now, I just got done telling you that you could potentially fade Nikola Jokic and here I am pivoting to the Nets/Celtics – a game with a double-digit spread and has the second lowest projected pace on the slate.
However, let’s say you want to eat the Joker chalk – is this game the way to actually build around him?
It may not seem so at first glance – as locking int he top plays in Kyrie Irving ($17.3K) and D’Angelo Russell ($16.1K) is not exactly shopping in the bargain bin but dig deeper – the rest of the player pool in this game is cheap, really cheap and considering some of the injury news we have in this game, we may have ample value.
We will need to keep an eye on the status of the Nets here, as this is a team already without Spencer Dinwiddie, Allen Crabbe and Caris LeVert and heads into tonight’s game with two starters – Treveon Graham and Joe Harris as questionable.
Heading into Boston this short-handed feels like a dangerous situation for Brooklyn but I simply have stopped counting out this Brooklyn team that is one of the hottest in the NBA. If Harris were to sit, Shabazz Napier ($8.9K) would be tasked with an even bigger role than he has with Dinwiddie out. If Graham is out, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson ($7.3K) and Rodions Kurucs ($7.5K) would be tasked with even larger roles for Brooklyn and do not overlook what Graham, the best on-ball defender Brooklyn has, would mean to Boston’s offense if he does miss here.
The Nets if short-handed become an interesting stacking option, less because of the match-up and more because the roles will be more defined and the usage will have no choice but to be condensed. D-Russ and Jarrett Allen, combined for 103 fantasy points the last time they met with Boston and there is enough fringe value here depending on the news to make this an interesting and affordable game stack.
On the Celtics side, Kyrie has been the biggest story the last week, with 60+ fantasy points in four of his last five games and pairing him with Jokic as an example, feels like a safe way to build your floor/ceiling at price points that are not overly restrictive.
The Celtics ran a very tight starting unit focused rotation against the Warriors last game with only Jaylen Brown and Gordon Hayward seeing 20+ minutes off the bench. All season long we have screamed to play bigs against the Nets, so locking in Al Horford ($12.4K) and Jayson Tatum ($11.3K) is an inexpensive way to attack the Brooklyn front court.
In the first meeting this season, where Kyrie played against Brooklyn (note he sat the last time they played), both Horford and Tatum had strong games, combining for 67 fantasy points.
Take a step back and think about this roster build for a second:
- You can lock in Jokic as a one-off if you are afraid of fading his ceiling game
- You can build around two of the highest ceiling guards on the slate in Kyrie and D-Russ
- This trio allows you still $9.5K per player – MORE than enough to mix and match the players in this game
UPDATE – Well Kyrie Irving has been ruled OUT which means we largely have the exact same game environment as the last time these two played. You will see Jayson Tatum was the dominant force with 54 fantasy points while much of the “can’t miss” value like Terry Rozier was largely a bust. Well it was just a few days later where Rozier got the start for Kyrie against the Cavs and proceeded to drop 48 FPTS – this is the upside you are fading if you simply say “he busted last time in this spot.”
This game in many ways becomes even more stackable now – the game will likely stay closer and we have a strong mid-tier of options that are all priced for roles that will be expanded upon in a significant way tonight.
NBA DFS – Sample Lineup and Slate Overview:
Please note: This lineup is meant to be illustrative only and should not be used as a Plug and Play lineup.
More from FanSided
- Caesars and PointsBet Promo Codes: $1,750 Bonus For ANY World Cup or MLB Game!
- Thunder projected lineup and rotations heading into 2023-24 season
- NWSL Challenge Cup news: Courage ruthless against Washington, Racing remain perfect
- 2023 Women’s World Cup: Ary Borges and Brazil showed the entire world what they are about
- Trea Turner’s rough season goes from bad to worse
G: Kyrie Irving
F/C: Nikola Jokic
F/C: Al Horford
F/C: Jayson Tatum
UTIL: Rondae Hollis-Jefferson
UTIL: Rodions Kurucs
Slate Overview: If you are taking the approach that Nikola Jokic is a lock and load play on this slate and at this price point, it is hard to argue against it (even though I tried) – so the question is, how do you build around it.
Well here are the options we DID NOT cover:
- A fully healthy Golden State team against a Pacers team without Victor Oladipo
- The Knicks and Hornets, with the lone “safe play” in Kemba Walker questionable with an injury
- The Hawks/Clippers – a game with a nice pace and some bad defense, but a spot that lacks the stars and has as much blowout potential as any on the slate.
So as much as the Nets/Celtics game is not the most obvious – it does give us a few things we can hang out hat on. First, we can lock in two high ceiling stars in Kyrie and D-Russ, around Jokic, giving you realistically three players with 60+ ceilings.
The Celtics secondary plays are all priced fairly with 30-40 type outings seemingly like a realistic outcome against a Brooklyn team playing at a top 5 pace in the last ten games and then with some injury news on the Nets side, it could mean expanded roles for players with cheap price tags.
This is not an easy slate – there is more risk it seems then safe alternatives, which will likely lead to players like Jokic pushing insane ownership levels. Sometimes on these slates, taking the obvious path is the right way to go – sure you can stack GS/Indy and hope it stays close or you can attack bad teams like the Hawks/Knicks but to me, the Nets/Celtics, despite its high spread is the one game where I can see it staying competitive with two current playoff teams.
Next. FanDuel NBA DFS Slate Breakdown - Monday, January 28. dark
Stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest NBA DFS news and analysis across FantasyDraft, FanDuel and DraftKings each and every day!