NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Wednesday March 20
Welcome to the Wednesday 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.
Holy D’Angelo Russell Batman! If you went to bed last night with the Kings blowing out the Nets and you were in the cash position without the Nets guard you probably felt pretty good about your night. Well, ten D-Russ went BONKERS in the 4th quarter scoring 27th in the quarter to pull off an incredible come from behind victory on his way to 77 fantasy points which led the slate and drive the cash line and winning GPP scores with the true late night hammer!
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 – Wednesday Slate Breakdown:
We have a huge 9 game NBA DFS slate here on the first day of spring and the first day with official MLB baseball while we are just a day away from the start of the NCAA tournament – to say we have hit the best time of year for sports fans would be an understatement.
There are a few things that jumped out at me when I first opened this slate – the most glaring being how many poor game environments we seem to have. Of the 18 teams in action, a whopping 14 of them see a pace decrease and there is only one game on the slate (Celtics/Sixers) where both teams see a projected pace boost.
The other big thing – which will be a big thing every slate the last week or so of NBA DFS until we can transition to MLB DFS, is how many injuries we have to monitor.
Let’s take a stroll shall we?
- Giannis Antetokounmpo sat out last night against the Lakers and now the Bucks have a B2B against the Cavs. We will await word here but if Giannis is out – go ahead and fire up the Eric Bledsoe, Khris Middleton, Nikola Mirotic chalk trio again.
- Kyle Lowry is questionable to play tonight against OKC which pushes guys like Fred Van Vleet into consideration and gives a huge boost to Kawhi Leonard.
- The highest total game of the night that has the Bulls/Wizards facing off with a 233 total, could be without Zach LaVine who is questionable to play with a thigh injury. Otto Porter is also doubtful for this game which could mean massive boosts for the remaining Bulls against a bad Wizards defense.
- C.J. McCollum remains out for Portland – aka keep firing up Damian Lillard and Jusuf Nurkic.
I think you get the gist at this point – this is what we have SO far and I guarantee we get a couple of bombs dropped throughout the day which will make this an even tougher slate to navigate!
NBA DFS – Building Our Core:
With a handful of playoff bound teams on this slate, it may seem weird to start with the Bulls-Wizards as a core starting point in your roster build but with so many injuries and two teams that rank in the bottom 5 in the NBA in Def-Rtg in March – this game has all the makings of a stack spot in DFS.
This game happened back in early February after the Wizards/Bulls trades and that game ended 134-125 with a whole lot of fantasy goodness on both sides!
Bradley Beal (47), Jabari Parker (39), Bobby Portis (33), Trevor Ariza (33) and Tomas Satoransky (31) combined for over 180 fantasy points in that game while Lauri Markkanen and Zach LaVine went for 40+ each in that game.
With the Bulls potentially down both Porter and LaVine tonight, Markkanen by default is going to be tasked with running the offense in this game and was a player that was routinely putting up 50 fantasy points just a few weeks ago before a mini-slump brought his price back down to its current $13K level.
Kris Dunn ($10.1K) has been maddeningly inconsistent with his minutes, being held under 30 minutes almost every night but with Porter/LaVine out – I am not sure how the Bulls limit him here. The last game LaVine sat against the Lakers (keep in mind Porter played) and Dunn was on the court for 32 minutes and racked up 43 fantasy points.
Shaq Harrison ($6.2K) drew the start last game for Porter and ended up playing 32 minutes and getting 19 fantasy points on the strength of 4 steals. Obviously banking on a steals foundation in DFS can be risky, but if Harrison is getting 30+ minutes here tonight it becomes tough to ignore the value.
With a slate high 233 total and only a 2 point spread, and a game log we can anchor back to in a recent first meeting – this feels like a spot that a full on game stack becomes easy to argue.
NBA DFS – Building Around the Stars:
As I mentioned earlier – the only game where both teams see a projected pace increase tonight is the Celtics and Sixers and with Joel Embiid expected back, this potential Eastern Conference playoff preview could be the path of least resistance when building your rosters tonight.
We have a 226 total, a 3 point spread, a fast pace game environment with two teams that have defined rotations and a national TV game to add the cherry on top.
The Celtics will be without Gordon Hayward tonight as they sit in the 5th seed currently just .5 game out of the 4 seed and 3 games behind the Sixers for the 3 seed. With this being the last regular season match-up between the two, a win here is critical for Boston if they intend to catch the Sixers and look to get home court advantage in the first two rounds.
With Gordon Hayward out again with a concussion, we could see the Celtics run an incredibly right rotation as they did last game against Denver where all five starters played 33-36 minutes with bench guys like Terry Rozier and Jaylen Brown limited to 20 and 21 minutes each.
Kyrie Irving ($16.7K) has put up 53, 65 and 68 fantasy points over his last three games and put up 60 fantasy points the last time he faced the Sixers. Against Denver last game out, with Hayward out, Kyrie had a 33% usage rate and with this game being a “must win” on National TV – I could see another massive game from Kyrie.
Marcus Morris ($10.4K) has actually had success in this match-up – going for 31, 35 and 38 fantasy points in the three previous meetings and is actually the cheapest of the Boston big guys. Jayson Tatum ($11.8K) has gone for 41, 47 and 44 fantasy points in the three previous games against the Sixers giving you another viable mid-range stacking option along side Kyrie.
Al Horford ($11.3K) and Marcus Smart ($9.5K) both have paths to major minutes here but I am not sure this is the match-up we want to roll them out in. Horford has struggled in the only two games against the Sixers that Kyrie played (23 and 25 fantasy points) while Smart failed to eclipse 20 fantasy points in either of those first two outings.
Joel Embiid ($17.8K) is due back tonight after resting last night and is fresh off a 78 fantasy point performance against the Bucks where he went for 40 and 15 fantasy points. Ben Simmons ($14.8K) went for 60+ the first time these teams faced off earlier this season but has been held to 35-40 fantasy points in the last two meetings. Jimmy Butler ($13.3K) and Tobias Harris ($13.3K) put up 35 fantasy points each the last time they faced Boston with Harris getting the best on paper match-up against a Celtics team that is ranked 28th in Def-Eff defending the PF position.
Assuming the rotations stay in playoff mode here – I think you could make the argument this is the safest game stack on the board as a result of the pace, minutes security and talent level in this ball game.
NBA DFS – Pivot Plays and Slate Overview:
One team that stands out from a metrics perspective that will likely get totally ignored tonight is the Orlando Magic who see the largest pace increase on the slate and also get the biggest point boost – expecting to score over 10 points more than their season average.
More from FanSided
- 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
- Brewers attempt to troll Elly De La Cruz backfires 456 feet
The Magic are in a playoff battle right just 1.5 games out of the #8 seed so this is a team that actually has something to play for and I wonder if they get a bit over-looked here tonight and the Pelicans.
Nikola Vucevic ($17.4K) is coming off a 27/20 performance with 60+ fantasy points against the Hawks and at a price point similar to Embiid, I could see folks opting for the name value of The Process. In March, no team is playing at a faster pace than New Orleans while also having a bottom 10 defense so this sets up well for some Magic exposure.
On the other side of this game, we get Elfrid Payton against his old team at $14.3K on FantasyDraft coming into this game with 5 straight triple doubles and 5 straight 50+ fantasy point games. I know the price seems high on Elf but he needs only 43 fantasy points to hit value here and is playing some of the best basketball of any player on the slate.
Slate Overview: Giving you a sample lineup with so much unknown feels somewhat pointless if we are being honest here at 6AM EST. I think to me there are two games that seem like great game stacks for different reasons. I think the Celtics/Sixers feels like the safe game stack with a concentrated rotation and mid-tier pricing while the Bulls/Wizards has the potential for a shootout similar to the last time they met with injuries that would open up usage and value.
What we haven’t covered is injuries – if Giannis is out – guys like Bledsoe and Middleton go right back to being elite plays at $12K each against a terrible Cavs defense. Basically buckle up – 9 game slate and so much unknown – I would try to cross off games you have no interest in and as I started with – 14 of the 18 teams on this slate see pace decreases so I think you can simplify this mess by simply ignoring spots and zeroing in on the best pure game environments.
DraftKings NBA Picks - Wednesday, March 20. dark. Next
Stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest DFS news and analysis each and every day across FantasyDraft, FanDuel and DraftKings.