Core Plays LIVE: NBA DFS Picks for Thursday, April 10th

by Taylor Smith (tcsmith031) Last Updated 2025-04-10 22:32:30 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.

At long last, we’ve made it to Thursday. The NBA schedule is winding down, and things will be a little chaotic between now and Sunday. We’re looking at a relatively tame 5-game slate tonight, and we have the added bonus of no teams playing on the back end of a back-to-back.

However, every team on the board is playing the front end of a back-to-back, so we’ll see how things shake out. Every team in the league will be in action tomorrow night, so that slate should be nice and insane.

Let’s enjoy the last chill one of the season, shall we?

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NBA DFS Picks: Core Plays LIVE for Thursday, April 10th

• 5-game main slate
  - 7:00 PM ET – New York Knicks at Detroit Pistons
  - 7:00 PM ET – Cleveland Cavaliers at Indiana Pacers
  - 7:30 PM ET – Atlanta Hawks at Brooklyn Nets
  - 8:00 PM ET – New Orleans Pelicans at Milwaukee Bucks
  - 9:30 PM ET – Minnesota Timberwolves at Memphis Grizzlies
• Front end of a back-to-back: Knicks, Pistons, Cavs, Pacers, Hawks, Nets, Pelicans, Bucks, T-Wolves, Grizzlies
• Back end of a back-to-back: None
• NBA DFS Optimizer
• NBA Starting Lineups
• NBA Injury Report
• Scroll to FanDuel and DraftKings Rankings & Core Plays

News Updates

Here’s where I’ll provide news updates.

Team Previews

New York Knicks (at DET)

The first game of the night should be a good one between a pair of playoff teams. The Knicks are 3.5-point underdogs in Detroit. Neither team is likely to improve their place in the standings between now and Sunday, but I’d still expect them to play it straight from a rotations standpoint. The Knicks are down OG Anunoby, Josh Hart, and Mitchell Robinson, which will open up some value.

A quick CourtIQ query to remove OG and Hart from the mix reveals nice usage boosts for Karl-Anthony Towns (+6.1%) and Mikal Bridges (+4.2%). Bridges is a far better value on DraftKings ($5,700) than he is on FanDuel ($6,800), while Towns looks like one of the best ways to spend salary on the slate. Towns has been boom-or-bust overall, but I trust the usage. The best cheap value on the board is Precious Achiuwa ($3,300 DK, $4,800 FD). We’re projecting Precious to draw the start, and the absence of Robinson means he could also see some run at center as Towns’ backup. He won’t generate a ton of usage in a starting role, but it’s hard to see a path to less than 30 minutes in this one.

Jalen Brunson logged 38 minutes in the last game (including OT), and we’re projecting 36 tonight. His usage boost sans OG/Hart hasn’t been quite as pronounced (+1.3%), but he still grades out as a solid play, particularly on FD ($8,400). We’re projecting Miles McBride to draw a rare start alongside Brunson as a result of the absences, and he and Landry Shamet are both projected for 30 minutes. McBride isn’t all that cheap in the $5,000 range, but the expected minutes make him playable.

Detroit Pistons (vs. NYK)

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