Core Plays LIVE: NBA DFS Picks for Sunday, May 19th
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. On weekends, Taylor Smith takes the reins. 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.
Welp, we’ve made it. Today is the last single-day, multi-game slate of the 2023-24 NBA campaign. What a time to be alive. If you’ve kept up with Core Plays LIVE on weekends all season, I’d like to thank you for reading. We’ll still have some NBA content for the remainder of the playoffs, but this is the last CPL piece until the fall.
Fortunately, we’ve got what should be a fun slate on tap to cap the season, as it’s Game 7 for these four teams. The Knicks and Pacers will return to Madison Square Garden for what will hopefully be an epic finale to their back-and-forth clash today at 3:30 PM ET. In the nightcap, the Nuggets will look to keep their title defense alive as they return home to host the T-Wolves in a do-or-die game at 8 PM ET. The environments for both games should be amazing, and both feature tight spreads. The Knicks are listed as 4.5-point home favorites, while the Nuggets are listed at -5 on their home floor.
Without further ado, let’s take a dive into the last traditional slate of the season.
NBA DFS Top Picks: Core Plays LIVE for Sunday, May 19th
Slate Overview
- 2-game slate
- 3:30 PM ET – Indiana Pacers at New York Knicks
- 8:00 PM ET – Minnesota Timberwolves at Denver Nuggets
- NBA DFS Injury Report: The Situation Room
- Scroll to FanDuel and DraftKings Rankings & Core Plays
News Updates
Here’s where I’ll provide any news updates.
Team Previews
Indiana Pacers (at NYK): While the Knicks have dealt with an endless rash of injuries, the Pacers have managed to stay healthy in this series. They’re 0-3 at MSG in the series, and we haven’t seen Rick Carlisle tighten the rotation significantly. Andrew Nembhard (37 minutes) was the only Pacer to play more than 32 minutes in Game 6, which was a bit surprising with the season on the line. Tyrese Haliburton (1.14 DK FP/minute) hasn’t been the amazing per-minute producer he was early in the season for quite some time now, and we can attribute some of his declining numbers to the arrival of Pascal Siakam (1.15). Hali looks cheap on paper at his sub-$9,000 salaries around the industry, but I’m finding myself paying up elsewhere today. Siakam, however, is one of my favorite plays on the entire slate at his price points in the mid-$7,000s.
Myles Turner has been doing Myles Turner things in this series. He’s been steady, but we haven’t seen a ceiling. Turner ranks as the best point-per-dollar value on the Indy side of things on both DK and FD, but I prefer some of the centers from the later game. Aaron Nesmith and Andrew Nembhard are lower-usage worker bees playing solid roles. On a slate without a ton of value, they look like 2 of the better salary relief options on the board at their respective positions. Obi Toppin is more of a large-field punt than anything else in the $4,000 range. T.J. McConnell (1.2 FP/minute) has been predictably crucial to the Pacers in this series, yet he still hasn’t topped 23 minutes off the bench in any game. We’re not really getting a discount on T.J. for his low-minute role, so I’m inclined to let others chase him in GPPs on this slate.
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