NBA DFS: Paul George and best/worst DraftKings daily fantasy basketball plays for Sunday, Sep. 13th

Welcome to your daily NBA DFS digest at FakeTeams, gents. Every day I’m here with a handful of pro-tips to roster a winning team just a few hours from now. On top of that, I’ll bring you some news, statistical trends from the past few days, some studs/duds from the last slate of games, and much more!

Hoop Land Times: News and notes from around the Association

• Nothing surprising in the Lakers stomping of Houston yesterday in Game 5 of the Western Conference second round, sending the Rockets packing home, and getting the series victory by a very sweet gentleman’s sweep of 4-1.
• And that means there is only one conference finals spot open, which will be filled tonight by the Clippers, or potentially by the Nuggets also next Tuesday if they can force Game 7.
• Mike Malone spoke yesterday and I didn’t like his already-defeated attitude... “We’re still a young team. Building, growing, adding.” Not liking it, at all.
• Shouts out to McGee and Dwight for logging 2 and 4 minutes respectively yesterday after vanishing in games prior. Definitely what the Lake Show needed. LOL.
• We all expected rumors about Giannis getting hot the minute the Bucks lost to Miami, but man are things going fast these days. It was reported that Giannis met with Milwaukee’s board yesterday to discuss the future of the franchise and start planning his own future. Don’t believe anything you heard, folks, it hasn’t been a week since the Bucks were eliminated, Giannis hasn’t yet been offered the expected extension, and we’re a year from him entering free agency...
• With Steve Nash as their head coach for 2021, the Nets have now turned to sign some other staff members and assistant coaches: the name making headlines yesterday was Jeff Van Gundy, along with Phil Handy.

Duds and Studs: Yesterday’s Slate Recap

• When the time comes, LeBron just goes and steps up. It never fails. James led the slate by a mile yesterday even while only playing under 31 minutes. That was enough to rack up 60 fantasy points to the tune of a 29-11-7 dub-dub to which he also added 2 steals and a block. Not a bad game to send Houston home, indeed, while punching his and the Lakers’ ticket to another conference finals, the first for them since 2010.
• Something incredible is finding Harden second in yesterday’s slate fantasy ranks. In a deciding game, The Beard didn’t totally disappoint, shot 60% from the floor, and finished with a 30-6-5 line that wasn’t that bad, although ultimately went for nothing... This fool said that the Rockets are just “once piece away” from being truly competitive. Sure, like in the past five or six years. Whatever...
• Anthony Davis was the only other player to reach more than 30 DKFP in which was a pretty lame fantasy game. AD finished with a 13-11 pairing that at least gave him some extra juice thanks to it being a dub-dub.
• The Lakers sealed their tickets to the WCF, so it makes sense that the ROI King award went to... Kyle Kuzma! Nothing fancy here, though. Kuzma just got 28 fantasy points, which... meh. Kuzzy dropped 17 pops on the rockets while shooting a nice 55.6% from the floor, grabbing 4 boards, and dishing out 2 assists.
• And the DOTS (Dud of the Slate) Award went to... Russell Westbrook! Tight race here for the DOTS between Russ and Eric Gordon, but Russ’ price obviously asked him to put on a way bigger performance than he did and that we could expect from Eric. Russ had a very stupid game finishing with a paltry 10-4-6 line even while logging 36 minutes... Gordon was terrible too, playing all of 29 rounds of the clock but finishing with a hellish 5-2-1...
• Two dub-dubs via points and rebounds (LeBron’s 29-11 and AD’s 13-11) and none between points and assists.
• Nobody blocked more than 2 shots, nor stole more than 2 rocks. Shitty statistical night all around.

Gotta Win The Day: Best/Worst DraftKings plays for today’s slate

• Love: (SG) Paul George, LAC (vs DEN): George has had a few duds during the postseason, including Game 4 against Denver (10-3-3 in 27 minutes...) but other than those blips he’s been magnificent. Two days ago it was the Clippers squad as a whole which put on a serious meltdown, but PG13 played to the level we know he has in him leading the game in minutes played (42) and finishing with some good 26-6-6-1-2 stuffed line. He also did that with a putrid 22% usage rate, which made his game incredibly efficient. The Nuggets have come back from a 1-3 deficit before, so you better be sure the Clips will do everything in their hand to stop them today not risking the biscuit in a potential G7. No restrictions for Paul or Kawhi today with fireworks most probably coming both men’s way.
• Hate: (PG/SG & C) Lou Williams & Montrezl Harrell, LAC (vs DEN): None of these two men are great plays tonight, nor have been during the Nuggets series. Coming off the bench, Lou is averaging a relatively “high” 26 minutes to Harrell’s 18, but it is not that they’re making the most of those... Sweet Lou hasn’t topped 13 points in any game, only had more than 4 rebounds once, and more than 5 assists in Game 2. Monty has been even worse, with no more than 3 boards in any game, virtually no assists, and a scoring average of 11.4 ppg against Denver. The Clips will probably go heavy on Kawhi/George tonight, so chances are Lou and Montrezl stay limited at the very least. Don’t waste your money here.
• Love: (C) Nikola Jokic, DEN (vs LAC): As far as top-dollar plays go, Jokic looks like the booming one to go with tonight. See, the Clips have no answer for The Joker exploits on the court, no matter if he works inside or outside. Kawhi is averaging a few more fantasy points per game since the start of the postseason, but Jokic has demolished LAC in their last four games of their series: the average line reads 26-14-6, he’s scored at least 22 points and 2 triples in each of those matches, never grabbed fewer than 11 boards in that span, and also block a shot in three of the four games. The fantasy tallies came at 61, 60, 51, and 52, which is bonkers. Murray is good, Jokic is just sublime.

If you have any comment or question about the daily column, tonight’s games, players involved in them, or even season-long fantasy NBA topics, just drop it below or reach out to me on Twitter at @chapulana and I’ll get back to you as soon as I grab a keyboard!