Core Plays LIVE: NBA DFS Picks for Monday, November 17th

by Taylor Smith (tcsmith031) Last Updated 2025-11-17 23:35:30 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. On weekends, Taylor Smith takes the wheel. 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 plays, 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.

Hello! Happy Monday, if there is such a thing. On the bright side, we’re only about a week away from Thanksgiving, which is pretty much a wrap on the work year. Sure, you may show up at the office, but we all have an unspoken understanding that very little will actually get done until the calendar flips to 2026. It’s the Holiday Way, folks, I don’t write the rules.

Anywho, last night’s NBA slate was a wild one. We had 3 games go into overtime, including a particularly nutty 2-OT affair between the Bulls and Jazz. Those Bulls will have to go to Denver to play the 2nd half of the back-to-back tonight. Good luck to them with all that. That game only appears on the FanDuel main slate tonight, while all 7 games on the DraftKings docket tip between 7:00-8:00 PM ET.

Let’s go!

NBA DFS Top Picks: Core Plays LIVE for Monday, November 17th

Slate Overview

• 8-game main slate (FD); 7-game main slate (DK)
  - 7:00 pm ET – Los Angeles Clippers at Philadelphia 76ers
  - 7:00 pm ET – Indiana Pacers at Detroit Pistons
  - 7:00 pm ET – Milwaukee Bucks at Cleveland Cavaliers
  - 7:30 pm ET – New York Knicks at Miami Heat
  - 7:30 pm ET – Charlotte Hornets at Toronto Raptors
  - 8:00 pm ET – Oklahoma City Thunder at New Orleans Pelicans
  - 8:00 pm ET – Dallas Mavericks at Minnesota Timberwolves
  - 9:00 pm ET – Chicago Bulls at Denver Nuggets
• 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

Los Angeles Clippers (at PHI)

The Clippers lost a tough one in Boston yesterday afternoon, and tonight they’ll take on the Sixers in Philadelphia, where James Harden will deal with lusty booing all night. The Clips are dealing with some injuries, because the Clips are always dealing with some injuries. Kawhi Leonard and Bradley Beal remain out, while Derrick Jones Jr. and Jordan Miller will also miss this one after going down with injuries yesterday. LAC is a 5.5-point ‘dog here against a shorthanded Philly team.

Harden has his detractors, but he will go out there and ball every night, no questions asked. Harden leads LA with a 33.5% usage rate alongside a stellar 1.54 FP/minute average this season with Leonard and Beal off the floor, all while playing heavy minutes every night. I think he’s a very strong DK GPP play at $9,900, while he’s easier to get to on FD at $9,500 with SG eligibility. With DJJ out, we’re projecting Bogdan Bogdanovic to draw a start on the wing. Bogey has been mediocre per minute (0.85), but he’s affordable and offers MPE on both sites. I’m a bit nervous about his elderly legs on the second half of a B2B – especially if he’s chalk – but he projects well. I don’t mind pivoting to a similarly priced Kris Dunn in a starting role, especially if Bogdanovic is significantly more popular.

Ivica Zubac never generates tons of usage, but he will get the benefit of facing an Embiid-less Sixers frontcourt. As usual, he’s a solid midrange center play with a ceiling. LA is really scraping the bottom of the barrel with its rotation, with guys like Kobe Sanders, Nicolas Batum, and Cam Christie projected to get minutes here. Sanders is the most interesting for a few hundred bucks north of minimum salary on both sites. John Collins hasn’t done much in a Clippers uniform just yet, but he is starting with a path to around 30 minutes in the $5,000 range.

Philadelphia 76ers (vs. LAC)

The Sixers are also banged up, but there is a chance Paul George (Q) makes his season debut tonight against his former team. Double Harden/PG-13 revenge! Philly will be without Joel Embiid, Kelly Oubre Jr., and Adem Bona for this one, yet they’re favored at home against a similarly undermanned version of the Clippers.

If George suits up, he’ll likely start with a pretty strict minutes limit. He’s an easy fade if that’s the case. I don’t think George’s return does much to negatively impact Tyrese Maxey (1.37 FP/minute), who continues to fill it up on a nightly basis logging around 40 minutes a game. It seems like we’re reaching Maxey’s salary ceiling, yet I’m still interested in GPPs, especially if I’m rostering some of this LAC value on the other side. This is a pretty good Andre Drummond spot with Embiid and Bona both unavailable. Drummond is still solid per-minute (1.12), and 30+ minutes is a reasonable expectation if he avoids foul trouble. Drummond may not have the nuclear ceiling he used to, but he’s affordable.

George would simply replace Oubre in the starting unit, while guys like VJ Edgecombe and Quentin Grimes would continue to see heavy minutes. I’ll have more interest in getting to these guys if George remains sidelined.

Indiana Pacers (at DET)

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