Core Plays LIVE: NBA DFS Picks for Saturday, March 22nd

by Taylor Smith (tcsmith031) Last Updated 2025-03-22 18:07:40 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.

Happy Saturday! Does March Madness seem kinda lame so far to anybody else? The upsets have been fairly tame, and only a handful of games have been real nail-biters. It probably doesn’t help that the bracket I hastily filled out in approximately 3 minutes on Thursday morning instantly went up in flames. Still, here’s hoping we get more compelling action moving forward.

Light work in the NBA DFS streets tonight, as we’ve got a mere 4 games on the board. It’ll also be a late one, as half of the games don’t start until 10 PM ET or later. As always, I’ll be here throughout the afternoon keeping you apprised of the latest goings-on in terms of news, injury updates, and the like.

NBA DFS Picks: Core Plays LIVE for Saturday, March 22nd

• 4-game main slate
  - 7:00 PM ET – Golden State Warriors at Atlanta Hawks
  - 8:00 PM ET – Washington Wizards at New York Knicks
  - 10:00 PM ET – Milwaukee Bucks at Sacramento Kings
  - 10:30 PM ET – Chicago Bulls at Los Angeles Lakers
• Front end of a back-to-back: Hawks
• Back end of a back-to-back: Wizards
• NBA DFS Optimizer
• NBA Starting Lineups
• NBA Injury Report
• Scroll to FanDuel and DraftKings Rankings & Core Plays

Editor’s Note: Looking for more places to play? Check out our Underdog Fantasy promo code and PrizePicks promo code, two of the best DFS apps available today.

News Updates

Here’s where I’ll provide news updates.

Team Previews

Golden State Warriors (at ATL)

Let’s tip things off with the Warriors, who are out east tonight for a date with the Hawks in Atlanta. Stephen Curry has already been ruled out for this one with a pelvis injury, which sounds pretty, pretty painful. Gary Payton II is questionable. Golden State is still favored by about 2.5 points away from home. Steph just missed a game earlier this week against Milwaukee, which happened to be the same game in which Brandin Podziemski returned from his hip injury. Podz (0.95 FP/minute) is already back to playing full minutes, and he’s a core play candidate right out of the chute in a plus matchup against Atlanta. Jimmy Butler (+3.8%) and Moses Moody (+3%) get nice usage boosts without Curry, while Jonathan Kuminga (1.08 FP/minute) should play a more featured offensive role off the bench. All 4 of these guys look terrific, and I have no issue with getting to any of them together on a small slate.

Quinten Post (1.08 FP/minute) is projected to draw the start in Steph’s place in a bigger lineup that’ll push Draymond Green back to the 4. Post ($3,600) is cheap enough on DraftKings to grade out as one of the slate’s better early punts, though Green is a little harder to prioritize at his elevated price points. I like the idea of getting to a dusting of guys like Payton (if he plays) and Buddy Hield off the bench, especially assuming they’ll come in with lower ownership than Podziemski, Moody, and Kuminga.

Atlanta Hawks (vs. GSW)

Here is an example of the DFS tables that are provided to our Premium Subscribers

Want to read more? Sign up for Premium!