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
- Boston caught a break yesterday by getting their first win of the ECF against Miami, cutting the disadvantage in half, and leaving the series at 2-1 in the Heat favor.
- Gordon Hayward came back after more than a month out due to injury and had a nice game coming off the bench in which he logged up to 30 minutes. Very needed player for Boston going forward by the look of it yesterday.
- Steve Nash is planning something “big” for Brooklyn. That means the total opposite, in fact, as it seems Nash could put Durant at the four or five to play an overly small lineup.
- Dwight Howard is on his way to start tonight’s Game 2 for the Lakers against Denver. Kudos to Superman because after a rough bunch of seasons he’s got it right once for all again. Yay!
- The Indiana Pacers have added another name to their list of head coach targets: Mike Brown. He will be interviewing for the job soon.
Duds and Studs: Yesterday’s Slate Recap
- Not the happiest of endings for Miami in Game 3, but at least Bam paced the fantasy slate with his 58+ DKFP. Adebayo played almost 38 minutes and finished with a monster 27-16-1-3-2 stuffed line shooting 71.4% from the field on a losing effort. The usage wasn’t overly high at just 23.6%, but Bam was super efficient against Boston, as it’s been the case all postseason long.
- The two best Cs in the squad were also the two best players for Boston yesterday: Tatum finished with 56 fantasy points (25-14-8 dub-dub) while Jaylen reached 50 himself to the tune of a stuffed 26-7-5-3 line.
- All of the next four players in the leaderboard couldn’t even top 35 DKFP, including Tyler Herro, Jimmy Butler, Smart, and Kemba.
- In a losing effort yesterday, the ROI King award went to... Tyler Herro! That’s not entirely true (both Adebayo and Brown returned more value, but at much higher prices) but Herro was still a very nice play given his low price. Herro dropped 22 points on Boston while contributing 3 boards and 4 dimes in his 36 minutes off the bench. Swaggy Ty keeps doing it, folks.
- And the DOTS (Dud of the Slate) Award went to... Goran Dragic! Totally screwed me as I picked as the play of the slate yesterday... The Dragon sucked big time and in a short run of 28 minutes he could only score 11 points and dish out 5 assists... Horrific game and most probably one indicating a rebound is coming—must be coming—his way in Game 4. Daniel Theis and Gordon Hayward sucked a bit too, but returned almost two times Goran’s value.
- Two dub-dubs via points and rebounds (Bam’s 27-16 and Tatum’s 25-14) and none between points and assists.
- Three players stole 3 rocks (Bam, Jaylen, and Hayward), and Bam was the only one to block 2 shots.
Gotta Win The Day: Best/Worst DraftKings plays for today’s slate
- Love: (PF/C) Anthony Davis, LAL (vs DEN): Even though he proved to be the true no. 1 of the Lakers in Game 1 (sorry Bron), AD enters tonight’s slate with “only” the third-highest price behind LBJ and Jokic. That makes zero sense. Davis dominated Denver and did everything he wanted to on the court to kick the WCF off. He led the slate with gusto yet he didn’t even have a steal or a block on the night. The offense was basically run through his hands all game long with a 40.3% usage rate, and no Nugget was able to even remotely stop him. Lock to finish with 50+ DKFP in every single game of this series.
- Hate: (C) Nikola Jokic, DEN (at LAL): Jokic had it rough in Game 1. He got into a pretty stupid foul trouble (blame the refs or not, it doesn’t matter) and could only log 25 paltry minutes of playing time. In that time he dropped 21 points and grabbed a good 6 boards, but that just doesn’t cut it for someone as expensive as Jokic was and is tonight. Obviously, I’m not expecting him to get into that foul issues again tonight, but even while on the court the Lakers deployed JaVale and mostly Dwight Howard on the Joker and they had great games covering the biggie. Jokic is going to suffer this series, and I’m not liking what I watched from him in G1.
- Love: (C) Dwight Howard, LAL (vs DEN): Absolute flier-for-peanuts here if you load up in other positions and need a cheap play with upside to complete your lineup. Dwight comes at virtually the minimum price tonight, yet he is expected to start for the Lakers, play around 20 minutes, hit a bunch of alley-oops for his 10+ points, and obviously catch 5+ boards and block one or two shots here and there. Howard is not playing at his early-days level, sure, but for the price he carries with him he’s a true steal of a player against Denver now and for the rest of the series.
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!