Core Plays LIVE: NBA DFS Picks for Saturday, December 21st

by Taylor Smith (tcsmith031) Last Updated 2024-12-21 23:26:45 Premium Content Part of the product NBA DFS

A daily fantasy sports OG, Notorious has been roaming the DFS streets ever since they were invented. He has racked up multiple live final seats and several six-figure tournament wins in his DFS career and has long been one of the top NBA DFS minds in the industry. On weekends, Taylor Smith takes the reins. Their Core Plays LIVE article will zoom out on the slate as a whole, zoom in on the best NBA DFS picks, and constantly update as news breaks. Whether you are diving into the slate 5 hours before it starts or 5 minutes before it starts, Core Plays LIVE has everything you need for your DraftKings and FanDuel lineups.

It’s Saturday, which means you’re fresh off of faking your way through work in the pre-Christmas week. Congrats! The high is 74 today where I am, which doesn’t strike me as very December 21st weather, but what kind of person would I be to complain about a 74-degree day? A lame one, I’d say.

After that meandering intro, let’s turn our attention to tonight’s slate. NBA is Doing It Big today with approximately one million basketball games scattered throughout the day. DraftKings and FanDuel are rolling with behemoth 11-game slates tipping off at the standard 7 PM ET. Most of the teams that played last night are also in action tonight, which always makes for a fun time. We’ll see what kinds of shenanigans we get on the injury reports later on.

Off we go!

NBA DFS Picks: Core Plays LIVE for Saturday, December 21st

• 11-game slate
  - 7:00 PM ET – Miami Heat at Orlando Magic
  - 7:30 PM ET – Memphis Grizzlies at Atlanta Hawks
  - 7:30 PM ET – Utah Jazz at Brooklyn Nets
  - 8:00 PM ET – New York Knicks at New Orleans Pelicans
  - 8:00 PM ET – Golden State Warriors at Minnesota Timberwolves
  - 8:00 PM ET – Philadelphia 76ers at Cleveland Cavaliers
  - 8:00 PM ET – Washington Wizards at Milwaukee Bucks
  - 8:00 PM ET – Boston Celtics at Chicago Bulls
  - 8:30 PM ET – Portland Trail Blazers at San Antonio Spurs
  - 8:30 PM ET – Los Angeles Clippers at Dallas Mavericks
  - 9:00 PM ET – Detroit Pistons at Phoenix Suns
• Front end of a back-to-back: Pelicans
• Back end of a back-to-back: Hornets, Heat, 76ers, Cavaliers, Bucks
• NBA DFS Optimizer
• NBA Starting Lineups
• NBA DFS Injury Report: The Situation Room
• Scroll to FanDuel and DraftKings Rankings & Core Plays

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News Updates

This section will be updated to account for news.

Team Previews

Miami Heat (at ORL)

The Heat lost a tight one at home to OKC last night, and tonight they’ll battle for pride against their Sunshine State bunkmates, the Orlando Magic. Jimmy Butler isn’t expected to play after leaving last night’s game with an illness. That’ll spring more usage for Tyler Herro (30.1%) and Bam Adebayo (24%) while leading to a likely start for Jaime Jaquez Jr. This matchup is legitimately horrible, and Miami has a 102.25 implied team total, but Jaquez (0.98 FP/minute) is good enough to warrant consideration at his affordable salaries. Herro and Adebayo still grade out as fine individual plays, though I wouldn’t play more than 1 of them in a GPP lineup given the huge slate and brutal matchup.

Orlando Magic (vs. MIA)

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