Core Plays LIVE: NBA DFS Picks for Tuesday, April 23rd
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 Tuesday!
What an incredible night of basketball on Monday. The regular season can disappoint at times, but the NBA Playoffs are always incredible. The Knicks and Lakers both blew a great opportunity to steal home-court advantage, but like the Magic, they will head back home down 0-2. For those keeping track at home, there hasn’t been a single road win so far in the playoffs. Something tells me the home-team winning streak is in jeopardy tonight. We have 3 games on the schedule. While it will be hard to top what we saw last night, these are still great games on paper.
I’m in the midst of trying to teach my son how to ride a bike. I know, I know, I should have done this years ago. His mom and I decided to buy him a bike for Easter. I had recently won some money during my annual March Madness trip to the casino, so I handed her a pile of cash and told her to go wild. She loves biking and gets all of her stuff from some fancy bike shop. Anyway, she comes back with a bike that I’m 99% sure is for an adult. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a sweet bike, but it’s way too big for my string bean of an 8-year-old. Not only that, but she bought him a helmet, knee pads, elbow pads, and wrist pads. I’m all for safety, but he looks like the kid from Little Giants.
We are two days into the learning process, and I can’t say that it is going particularly well. I get frustrated when he doesn’t listen; he gets frustrated when I’m frustrated. I even had a neighbor come out and ask if my son wanted to use her daughter’s bike since it was closer to his size. The smaller bike helped a little, but he’s got so many pads on that he can barely move his arms and legs. I tried to get him to take them off, but his mother has him scared out of his mind to try riding without pads. I know we’ll get him there eventually. If nothing else, parenting is a test of patience. I was always good at tests growing up, so hopefully I can pass this one.
Speaking of tests, let’s try to ace tonight’s 3-game NBA DFS slate.
NBA DFS Top Picks: Core Plays LIVE for Tuesday, April 23rd
Slate Overview
- 3-game slate
- 7:30 PM ET – Phoenix Suns at Minnesota Timberwolves
- 8:30 PM ET – Indiana Pacers at Milwaukee Bucks
- 10:00 PM ET – Dallas Mavericks at Los Angeles Clippers
- 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
Phoenix Suns (at MIN): We kick off the slate with the Suns, who the Wolves blew out in Game 1. Phoenix essentially sold their future to win this season and are in danger of getting bounced in the first round of the playoffs. The series is far from over, but they need to play much better moving forward. My favorite part of Game 1 was Anthony Edwards talking trash to Kevin Durant. I love the confidence of Ant-Man and also loved the reaction from KD. When it comes to DFS, the Wolves are the worst possible matchup for fantasy production. They were 1st in both points allowed per game and defensive rating during the regular season. The Suns head into Game 2 as 3-point underdogs and have the lowest team total on the slate.
The main injury to monitor here is Grayson Allen, who is questionable with an ankle injury. He typically sees minutes in the mid-30s, so his absence would open up a lot of playing time for the likes of Royce O’Neale and Eric Gordon, who are both very cheap. If Allen is active, I’m not sure the potential reward of playing him outweighs the risk. He hasn’t shown much of a ceiling recently, the matchup is brutal, and there’s a chance he aggravates the injury. I would rather take a chance on O’Neale or Gordon, who should both see 20+ minutes even if Allen plays his usual allotment of minutes.
Kevin Durant dominated the usage (31%) in Game 1, while Devin Booker (25%) and Bradley Beal (15%) both took backseats in that regard. One game doesn’t necessarily translate to the next, but it’s not surprising that KD was the focal point on offense. This doesn’t discourage me from playing Booker, but I do worry about Beal. He had an efficient shooting game (6-for-10) and had 3 steals, and he still only finished with 32 fantasy points. Given the price gaps, I expect Beal to garner more ownership than both Booker and Durant. If ranking them in terms of priority, I would go Durant, Booker, and then Beal. My favorite option from the Suns is Jusuf Nurkic, who was unlucky to play only 27 minutes in Game 1. He picked up his 4th foul early in the 4th quarter and went to the bench. There’s a clear path for him to play 30+ minutes (especially in this matchup), and he averaged 1.27 DK / 1.28 FD points per minute during the regular season.
Here is an example of the DFS tables that are provided to our Premium Subscribers
Want to read more? Sign up for Premium!
