It was 78 degrees here in STL just 3 days ago, now we see so much snow falling I can’t see my dog when I let her outside. I guess it’s not quite baseball season yet and we still have some NBA to discuss. Here’s your early recon for today’s 10-game slate. Starting with Knicks/Pacers and dropping the hammer on Spurs/Kings.
Fall in, soldiers!! This process isn’t intended to take long. It’s a skim, if you will. You are starting your research by quickly glancing over the day’s slate and gathering your early intel. Our goal is to give you a head start on today’s action. Keith and I will be back later with picks and analysis for the slate for our VIP Insiders, as well as provide answers to questions as much as possible in the VIP Slack channels.
Daily Fantasy Players are priced by many factors. Some of the key factors are the teams’ seasonal averages in points scored and the pace at which they play. We can assume if a team is expected to score more points than they usually do, players from that team are in a better than usual spot to succeed. We can also assume if a team is expected to play at a faster pace than usual, their players are in a better than usual spot to succeed.
A strategy I’ve noticed…..and might employ……on bigger slates like this is to “run my Late Games LU in my all day slate.” If you notice that hammer game can really hurt if you don’t have a piece of them. Not so much last night, but usually it’s teams out west that are faster paced and can be higher scoring. When that situation arises, I’ve noticed my late game slate LUs can often outscore my LUs containing earlier games. While many will think this is just coincidental and stupid, I’m going to tell you I think based almost exclusively on the “west games play faster” logic gives this strategy merit.
Let’s start with the spreads and totals for the games and start looking out west to see if that scenario opens up tonight…..
VEGAS LINES – It honestly all starts here. 200 is the standard for a game in which we can expect fantasy goodness to appear. But, a lot more factors come into play, too. We don’t try to predict blowouts, but red spreads indicate the possibility.
| Road Team | Home Team | Favorite | Spread | Total | Tip-Off | |
| New York Knicks (24-34) | at | Indiana Pacers (30-26) | IND | -8 | 202.5 | 7:00 PM |
| Charlotte Hornets (29-26) | at | Cleveland Cavaliers (40-15) | CLE | -8.5 | 205.5 | 7:00 PM |
| Minnesota Timberwolves (18-39) | at | Toronto Raptors (37-18) | TOR | -9.5 | 212 | 7:30 PM |
| Golden State Warriors (50-5) | at | Miami Heat (32-24) | GS | -8.5 | 214.5 | 7:30 PM |
| Philadelphia 76ers (8-47) | at | Detroit Pistons (28-29) | DET | -11 | 210.5 | 7:30 PM |
| Los Angeles Lakers (11-47) | at | Memphis Grizzlies (32-23) | MEM | -8 | 205.5 | 8:00 PM |
| Washington Wizards (25-29) | at | Chicago Bulls (29-26) | CHI | -2 | 211 | 8:00 PM |
| Oklahoma City Thunder (40-16) | at | Dallas Mavericks (30-27) | OKC | -4.5 | 215 | 8:30 PM |
| Denver Nuggets (22-34) | at | Los Angeles Clippers (37-19) | LAC | -10 | 213 | 10:30 PM |
| San Antonio Spurs (47-9) | at | Sacramento Kings (23-31) | TBD | TBD | TBD | 10:30 PM |
Again tonight, we see all games over 200 points as projected by Las Vegas. I’m not predicting blowouts in red. I’m merely alerting you to the bigger spreads on the night.
POINTED UP! – The teams with green numbers for +/- PPG (Points Per Game) are expected to outperform their seasonal scoring averages per Vegas. Teams with red are expected to under-perform.
| Team Offense | Opponent | Team Total | PPG | Total +/- |
| San Antonio Spurs | SAC | TBD | 105.2 | TBD |
| Sacramento Kings | SA | TBD | 107.2 | TBD |
| Detroit Pistons | PHI | 110.8 | 101.5 | 9.3 |
| Memphis Grizzlies | LAL | 106.8 | 98.1 | 8.7 |
| Toronto Raptors | MIN | 110.8 | 102.2 | 8.6 |
| Los Angeles Clippers | DEN | 111.5 | 105.2 | 6.3 |
| Miami Heat | GS | 103 | 96.8 | 6.2 |
| Chicago Bulls | WAS | 106.5 | 101.8 | 4.7 |
| Philadelphia 76ers | DET | 99.8 | 95.6 | 4.2 |
| Cleveland Cavaliers | CHA | 107 | 102.9 | 4.1 |
| Dallas Mavericks | OKC | 105.3 | 101.4 | 3.8 |
| Indiana Pacers | NY | 105.3 | 102.4 | 2.8 |
| Washington Wizards | CHI | 104.5 | 102.4 | 2.1 |
| Los Angeles Lakers | MEM | 98.8 | 97.2 | 1.6 |
| Denver Nuggets | LAC | 101.5 | 100.7 | 0.8 |
| Minnesota Timberwolves | TOR | 101.3 | 100.8 | 0.5 |
| Oklahoma City Thunder | DAL | 109.8 | 109.6 | 0.2 |
| Golden State Warriors | MIA | 111.5 | 115 | -3.5 |
| Charlotte Hornets | CLE | 98.5 | 102 | -3.5 |
| New York Knicks | IND | 97.3 | 99.1 | -1.8 |
PACED UP! – Similar to being pointed up, the teams in green should be playing faster than normal while the teams in red should be playing slower. More possessions might mean more opportunity to score points.
| Team Offense | Opponent | Pace | Proj. Pace | Pace +/- |
| San Antonio Spurs | SAC | 96.4 | 100.8 | 4.4 |
| Miami Heat | GS | 95.1 | 99.4 | 4.3 |
| Chicago Bulls | WAS | 98.6 | 100.7 | 2.1 |
| Detroit Pistons | PHI | 97.8 | 99.7 | 1.9 |
| New York Knicks | IND | 95.9 | 97.5 | 1.6 |
| Dallas Mavericks | OKC | 96.4 | 97.7 | 1.3 |
| Washington Wizards | CHI | 100.1 | 100.7 | 0.6 |
| Denver Nuggets | LAC | 98 | 98.4 | 0.4 |
| Memphis Grizzlies | LAL | 95.3 | 95.6 | 0.3 |
| Los Angeles Clippers | DEN | 98.4 | 98.4 | 0 |
| Philadelphia 76ers | DET | 99.9 | 99.7 | -0.2 |
| Cleveland Cavaliers | CHA | 95.2 | 95 | -0.2 |
| Toronto Raptors | MIN | 95.7 | 94.7 | -1 |
| Sacramento Kings | SA | 102.4 | 100.8 | -1.6 |
| Oklahoma City Thunder | DAL | 99.3 | 97.7 | -1.6 |
| Indiana Pacers | NY | 99.6 | 97.5 | -2.1 |
| Minnesota Timberwolves | TOR | 97 | 94.7 | -2.3 |
| Los Angeles Lakers | MEM | 98.3 | 95.6 | -2.7 |
| Charlotte Hornets | CLE | 97.8 | 95 | -2.8 |
| Golden State Warriors | MIA | 102.3 | 99.4 | -2.9 |
TOTAL FANTASY POINTS ALLOWED & DvP RANKINGS – This graphic provides a quick glance at how strong or weak a defensive team plays overall, as well as against a specific position. We are looking for green numbers and trying to avoid red numbers, and we are looking to roster a player from the OPPONENT’s team in the 2nd column. Example, the MEM PG is, theoretically, in great spot.
| Team Defense | Opponent | TotalFPA | vs. PG | vs. SG | vs. SF | vs. PF | vs. C |
| Los Angeles Lakers | MEM | 30 | 30 | 28 | 28 | 22 | 28 |
| Sacramento Kings | SAS | 29 | 22 | 30 | 23 | 29 | 25 |
| Philadelphia 76ers | DET | 28 | 24 | 17 | 26 | 28 | 30 |
| Chicago Bulls | WAS | 25 | 28 | 14 | 25 | 19 | 26 |
| Denver Nuggets | LAC | 23 | 25 | 27 | 14 | 24 | 21 |
| Charlotte Hornets | CLE | 20 | 12 | 15 | 20 | 25 | 15 |
| Washington Wizards | CHI | 19 | 15 | 25 | 27 | 10 | 13 |
| Golden State Warriors | MIA | 16 | 26 | 11 | 13 | 13 | 24 |
| Dallas Mavericks | OKC | 15 | 11 | 9 | 8 | 27 | 9 |
| Minnesota Timberwolves | TOR | 14 | 23 | 16 | 17 | 9 | 8 |
| New York Knicks | IND | 11 | 20 | 13 | 11 | 7 | 16 |
| Indiana Pacers | NY | 10 | 7 | 19 | 6 | 14 | 14 |
| Oklahoma City Thunder | DAL | 9 | 19 | 23 | 9 | 5 | 4 |
| Detroit Pistons | PHI | 8 | 13 | 10 | 3 | 16 | 12 |
| Los Angeles Clippers | DEN | 7 | 4 | 8 | 10 | 8 | 19 |
| Memphis Grizzlies | LAL | 6 | 6 | 4 | 15 | 11 | 1 |
| Toronto Raptors | MIN | 5 | 3 | 12 | 4 | 4 | 17 |
| Miami Heat | GSW | 4 | 2 | 3 | 18 | 3 | 6 |
| Cleveland Cavaliers | CHA | 3 | 18 | 6 | 7 | 2 | 2 |
| San Antonio Spurs | SAC | 1 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 5 |
I don’t think it’s front page news to tell you the teams at the top of the table are typically poor on defense, and the teams at the bottom are not teams we get excited about targeting.
Another easy thing to watch is exhaustion control. Many coaches will rest players on the 2nd half of consecutive games. Basketball can take it’s toll and coaches need to keep their players fresh when they can. Players playing back to back games become prime targets for rest or limited minutes, obviously hurting their fantasy production and value to us. We further watch for situations like 3 games in 4 nights or the dreaded 4 games in 5 nights. We also watch traveling teams with particular interest.
BACK 2 BACKS! – Graphic containing teams we should watch for limited minutes and/or rest days. Maybe hard to see the colors, but yellow is caution, orange is a little more caution, and red is just crazy.
| Team | B2B | 2of3 | 3of4 | 4of5 |
| Atlanta | ||||
| Boston | ||||
| Brooklyn | ||||
| Charlotte | ||||
| Chicago | ||||
| Cleveland | Yes | Yes | ||
| Dallas | ||||
| Denver | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Detroit | Yes | Yes | ||
| Golden State | Yes | |||
| Houston | ||||
| Indiana | Yes | Yes | ||
| L.A. Clippers | Yes | |||
| L.A. Lakers | Yes | Yes | ||
| Memphis | ||||
| Miami | Yes | |||
| Milwaukee | ||||
| Minnesota | Yes | |||
| New Orleans | ||||
| New York | Yes | |||
| Oklahoma City | ||||
| Orlando | ||||
| Philadelphia | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Phoenix | ||||
| Portland | ||||
| Sacramento | Yes | |||
| San Antonio | ||||
| Toronto | Yes | Yes | ||
| Utah | ||||
| Washington | Yes |
Noteworthy that both DEN and WAS are on B2Bs and 3of4. Playing 3 games in 4 nights is tough enough, let alone when the last two games are on consecutive nights.
If you made it this far, you might want to see/learn more. For information on joining the VIP Insiders, click HERE! You will gain access to:
- Private Slack channel exclusively for VIP Insiders, where you find DFS NBA pro Keith Hall actively answering questions and offering strategy advice.
- Daily player picks on slates with 5 or more games, only excluding Sundays.
- Daily cheatsheets for both FanDuel and DraftKings to help build your lineups.
- Early access to any and all semi-private freerolls on FanDuel or DraftKings offered to the DFS Army.
Again, this is not the end-all be-all when it comes to analyzing a slate. This is a first glance to identify targets we may want to dive deeper into. You may, in fact, choose a player in a poor DvP matchup due to other indicators, especially on a short slate night. Don’t overthink this stuff. The concept is to put your players in the best spots to be successful and roll them out. Keith and I will be back later to provide the VIP Insiders with more in-depth player analysis and specific picks for tonight. And, of course, the cheatsheets! (Remembering, of course, cheatsheets come out on slates 5 games and larger.)
