NBA DFS Core Plays LIVE: Monday, February 5th
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 Noto will mix it up in all different types of contests. So, who better to walk you through the madness of an NBA DFS slate? Core Plays LIVE 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, you’ve come to the right place.
Happy Monday, everyone!
I hope you all had a great weekend. If you don’t have kids and don’t want to hear me rant about mine, feel free to scroll down to the team previews. I don’t know what happened, but my 8-year-old got braces and immediately turned into a moody teenager. He’s at the stage where everything is a battle. Time to brush teeth? Battle. Time to go to bed? Battle. Want to play some Ninja Turtles on the Switch? Battle. Time to go to school? Huge battle. He’s always been the sweetest kid, so I am hoping this is a short-term thing.
The worst part is that I always have some type of parental guilt rattling around in my brain. Am I being too hard on him? Am I not being strict enough? Does he spend too much time on his tablet? Is he too spoiled? The list goes on and on. Honestly, he’s my best friend, and we do everything together, but I’d like to avoid butting heads so much. I have always considered myself a very patient person, but he is finding ways to push that patience to new limits. I’m not sure the point of my rant other than to let other parents know that they aren’t alone. Parenting is tough.
On a fun note, we had a blast meeting all the Jazz players on Friday night. They rented out a bowling alley/movie theater/arcade, so we spent a good four hours doing all of the activities. He got all of their autographs and even got to play the pop-a-shot arcade game with Collin Sexton. The highlight for me was roasting my little one and his friend in mini golf. I’ll let him win at card games now and then, but if he wants the mini-golf crown, he needs to earn it. While we were there, a lot of the Jazz players were asking me for advice on how to be better at basketball. They must have heard about my mediocre high school career and that I worked with someone who played at Duke. After their big comeback win last night, I think they took the advice to heart.
Let’s turn our attention to tonight’s slate. We have 6 games on the schedule, which might be my favorite number for a slate. There aren’t so many games that it feels overwhelming, yet there are enough games to provide us with plenty of options at each position. We have three teams playing in the second half of a back-to-back (Hornets, Clippers, Raptors) and two teams playing in the front end of a back-to-back (Mavericks, Nets).
NBA DFS Top Picks: Core Plays LIVE for Monday, February 5th
Slate Overview
- 6-game slate
- 7:00 PM ET – Los Angeles Lakers at Charlotte Hornets
- 7:00 PM ET – Sacramento Kings at Cleveland Cavaliers
- 7:00 PM ET – Dallas Mavericks at Philadelphia 76ers
- 7:30 PM ET – Los Angeles Clippers at Atlanta Hawks
- 7:30 PM ET – Golden State Warriors at Brooklyn Nets
- 8:00 PM ET – Toronto Raptors at New Orleans Pelicans
- Teams on the front end of a back-to-back: Mavericks, Nets
- Teams in the second half of a back-to-back: Hornets, Clippers, Raptors
- NBA DFS Injury Report: The Situation Room
- Scroll to FanDuel and DraftKings Rankings & Core Plays
News Updates
This section will be updated as injury news is released throughout the day.
Team Previews
Los Angeles Lakers (at CHA): The Lakers have won 6 of their last 10 games and are back above .500 on the season. They have struggled mightily on the road (9-17) but draw a winnable matchup against the Hornets. This is a solid matchup for fantasy production, which is why the Lakers are projected to score 4.9 points more than their season average. Jarred Vanderbilt should be out tonight, while LeBron James and Anthony Davis are listed as questionable. As is always the case, if one is out, the other becomes an elite play in DFS. I’m going into the slate with the assumption that they are both going to be active. If that’s the case, Davis is my preferred target of the two. The Hornets are one of the worst rebounding teams in the league and struggled to defend the paint. I will note that Davis is cheaper on DraftKings and that James is cheaper on FanDuel. If LeBron or AD end up being out, then we can take a harder look at D’Angelo Russell, Austin Reaves, Rui Hachimura, and Taurean Prince.
Here is an example of the DFS tables that are provided to our Premium Subscribers
Want to read more? Sign up for Premium!
