Core Plays LIVE: NBA DFS Picks for Sunday, May 11th

by Taylor Smith (tcsmith031) Last Updated 2025-05-11 15:20:12 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 Sunday! Greetings from somewhere in Arizona, where it will get up to a cool 101 degrees today. My family is scattered across a few states, so my mom thought it would be nice to spend Mother’s Day all together in a neutral location. She picked Phoenix because she thought it’d be nice this time of year. It is certainly a time of year, I’ll give her that much.

Anyway, we’ve got another 2-game NBA playoff docket on tap. The Nuggets and Pacers will look to extend their respective series leads to 3-1 over the top-seeded teams in each conference. Denver got one step closer with an OT win over Oklahoma City on Friday night, while Cleveland notched their first win of their series in blowout fashion that same night.

This is another early tip at 3:30 PM ET, so let’s get right into it.

NBA DFS Picks: Core Plays LIVE for Sunday, May 11th

• 2-game main slate
  - 3:30 PM ET – Oklahoma City Thunder at Denver Nuggets
  - 8:00 PM ET – Cleveland Cavaliers at Indiana Pacers
• NBA DFS Optimizer
• NBA Starting Lineups
• NBA Injury Report
• Scroll to FanDuel and DraftKings Rankings & Core Plays

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News Updates

Here’s where I’ll provide news updates.

Team Previews

Oklahoma City Thunder (at DEN)

The Thunder were the league’s best team wire-to-wire this season, yet here they are on the brink of falling into a 3-1 series deficit this afternoon in Denver. OKC is favored by 6 points in today’s Game 4, however. They crushed the Nuggets in Game 2 after dropping Game 1, so perhaps we’ll see a similar urgency from them today. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander struggled offensively in Game 3, but he’s still sporting a team-high 35% usage rate alongside a 1.58 FP/minute rate since the playoffs got underway. I’m having a hard time building any lineups I like without him at $10,700 on FanDuel, while the positional format on DK makes it easier to build without him. He’s an elite play in all formats with OKC up against the wall, of course, but point guard is a fairly deep position.

Alex Caruso went off in Game 1 thanks to 7 stocks and one of his highest usage rates of the season, but he’s crashed back down to earth in the 2 games since. Caruso, Cason Wallace, and Lu Dort are all shaky values with low floors thanks to their limited usage. Caruso still has the highest ceiling of the 3, but he may also be the highest-owned again today. Jalen Williams (27.9% usage) and Chet Holmgren (22.1%) have been steady secondary presences for the Thunder offensively, and both project well for the dollar on DraftKings. On FanDuel, Williams is easier to get to thanks to his small forward eligibility. Isaiah Hartenstein (1.22 FP/minute) hasn’t yet cracked 30 minutes in regulation in the series, but he’s reasonably priced around the industry. I prefer Myles Turner straight up in that same price range, but both make for solid options at center.

Denver Nuggets (vs. OKC)

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