Core Plays LIVE: NBA DFS Picks for Saturday, April 27th
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. Taylor Smith takes over on weekends. 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.
Another weekend is upon us, which means a pair of 4-game, all-day NBA playoff slates. The action tips off once again at 1 PM ET with each subsequent game tipping off 2.5 hours after the previous contest. We should have some good games here, as 3 of them feature point spreads of 3.5 or less. The lone exception is BOS/MIA, where the Celtics are listed as sizable 9.5-point road favorites despite losing Game 2 on their home floor the other night.
Prize pools on DraftKings and FanDuel are impressive ahead of this 4-gamer. As is usually the case with the playoffs, we don’t have a whole lot of moving parts on the injury front. That should keep things relatively stress-free when it comes to having to monitor for post-lock news. The last thing you want to do is spend a Saturday hovering around your computer waiting for beat writer tweets.
So how should we go about building lineups today?
NBA DFS Top Picks: Core Plays LIVE for Saturday, April 27th
Slate Overview
- 3-game slate
- 1:00 PM ET – Cleveland Cavaliers at Orlando Magic
- 3:30 PM ET – Oklahoma City Thunder at New Orleans Pelicans
- 6:00 PM ET – Boston Celtics at Miami Heat
- 8:30 PM ET – Denver Nuggets at Los Angeles Lakers
- NBA DFS Injury Report: The Situation Room
- Scroll to FanDuel and DraftKings Rankings & Core Plays
News Updates
Here’s where I’ll update for any news.
Team Previews
Cleveland Cavaliers (at ORL): The Cavs got absolutely obliterated in Game 3, so we’ll see if they can extend their series lead to 3-1 in today’s Game 4. They are listed as 2-point underdogs in the game with the lowest total of the day, and they’re one of just 2 teams in action today with an implied team total below 100 points (99.75). Donovan Mitchell is leading the team in usage in the postseason (32.5%), but he’s only averaging 1.15 DK FP/minute in a tough matchup. Darius Garland (0.79) has struggled mightily, but those struggles have him down under $7,000 on both DraftKings and FanDuel. I have no qualms with DG as a buy-low play at point guard today. The secondary pieces have done next to nothing for Cleveland. Max Strus (0.57), Isaac Okoro (0.62), and Caris LeVert (0.66) have given them next to nothing. The minutes are still there for Strus and he’s fairly affordable, but he’s really just a tournament dart throw today.
Jarrett Allen (1.32 FP/minute) has been a bright spot, while Evan Mobley (1.01) has been passable. Like Mitchell and Garland, I’ll keep Allen in my player pool for GPPs. Mobley, meanwhile, falls into no man’s land from a pricing perspective.
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