Core Plays LIVE: NBA DFS Picks for Wednesday, April 24th
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 Wednesday!
We finally saw a couple of road teams (Pacers, Mavericks) pick up some wins last night. I hear our NBA optimal lineup at RotoGrinders has been crushing in 50/50s and double-ups, which is always good to hear. A big shout-out goes to the projections team. Like myself, I’m sure they are extremely happy that we no longer have 100 pieces of injury news every day. I usually only play small-field tournaments, and I’ve been getting a little too cute with my builds. For example, last night I decided to fade Jaden McDaniels. I liked him on paper but certainly didn’t see 40+ fantasy points coming.
We have 2 games on the schedule tonight, and they both feature large spreads. Let’s dive into the team previews.
NBA DFS Top Picks: Core Plays LIVE for Wednesday, April 24th
Slate Overview
- 2-game slate
- 7:00 PM ET – Miami Heat at Boston Celtics
- 9:30 PM ET – New Orleans Pelicans at Oklahoma City Thunder
- 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
Miami Heat (at BOS): The Heat were able to knock off the Celtics in the playoffs last season, but everything feels different this time around. Boston is a much better team, and unfortunately for Miami fans, the Heat are without Jimmy Butler and Terry Rozier. I hate to call a series over after the first game, but I’m going to do it anyway. The Heat were down 32 points heading into the 4th quarter of Game 1. They enter tonight’s game as 14.5-point underdogs and have a team total of 94.3 points. For reference, their total is 7 points lower than the next closest on the slate and 15.9 points lower than their season average.
There weren’t any major surprises in the rotation from Miami or their usage on offense. Tyler Herro, Jaime Jaquez, and Bam Adebayo each had a usage rate of over 22% and each attempted at least 13 shots. Herro (25 fantasy points) and Adebayo (35 fantasy points) failed to reach salary-based expectations, but Jaquez put up a solid outing (28 fantasy points). Of the three, I am most likely to target Jaquez given the fact that we are getting a nice salary discount compared to the other two players. The projections aren’t a big fan of the Heat here, as only one player on the roster has a positive RGValue.
Nikola Jovic and Caleb Martin have underwhelmed so far in the postseason. Jovic is a starter in name, but his minutes aren’t guaranteed. Martin has not found the same success in the playoffs as last season. They are cheap enough that you can throw them into your tournament player pool, but they still carry risk. Haywood Highsmith wasn’t particularly effective in Game 1, but he did log 26 minutes and is very cheap on all sites. Delon Wright was arguably the best player for the Heat the other night, as he put up 29 fantasy points in 26 minutes. He has quietly topped 20 fantasy points in 4 of his last 5 games. Highsmith and Wright might be the safest plays from Miami, as they should see 20+ minutes in a competitive game and potentially more in a blowout.
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