Core Plays LIVE: NBA DFS Picks for Wednesday, May 15th
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 had a fairly boring Tuesday night of basketball, as both of the playoff games were blowouts. The Knicks got out to a big lead early and never looked back. The home team has won all five games in the series so far. All we can hope for is that trend continuing so we get a Game 7 in Madison Square Garden. After losing the first 2 games of the series at home, the Nuggets have rattled off three straight wins and are now a single win away from advancing to the Western Conference Finals.
We have two games on the docket tonight. The Celtics will look to close out the Cavaliers at home, while the Mavericks and Thunder square off in a very important Game 5.
As always, thanks for joining me. Let’s get right into the team previews.
NBA DFS Top Picks: Core Plays LIVE for Wednesday, May 15th
Slate Overview
- 2-game slate
- 7:00 PM ET – Cleveland Cavaliers at Boston Celtics
- 9:30 PM ET – Dallas Mavericks 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
Cleveland Cavaliers (at BOS): The Cavaliers haven’t had their best in this series. To be fair, they have been without Jarrett Allen for each of the first 4 games and were without Donovan Mitchell in Game 4. The injury bug seems to be making its way around the locker room, and now Caris LeVert is dealing with a knee injury. All three players are listed as questionable for tonight, as the Cavaliers look to stave off elimination in Boston. This is a difficult matchup for fantasy production. Cleveland comes into the game as 15-point underdogs and has a team total of only 94.5 points.
It’s easy to give if/then scenarios when there is only one player on the injury report, but there are a lot of different scenarios in play tonight given the fact that Mitchell, Allen, and LeVert are all listed as questionable. If Mitchell is out and LeVert is active, he’ll draw the start and see a significant uptick in minutes and usage. He played 38 minutes in Game 4 and put up 36 fantasy points. Mitchell’s absence would also give significant boosts to the rest of the starting lineup. If LeVert and Mitchell are both out, this would open up 65-ish minutes in the rotation and 50% usage in the offense. In this scenario, Darius Garland, Max Strus, Sam Merrill, and Dean Wade would all become appealing options.
Allen hasn’t played in a couple of weeks, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see him out once again. Isaac Okoro has been starting in his place, although he hasn’t been able to take advantage of the opportunities. He has only averaged 22 minutes and 11 fantasy points per game in the series. The one positive is that he’s had a 20% usage rate while on the floor. Evan Mobley has quietly been solid all series, averaging 35 minutes and 39 fantasy points per game. His matchup has been a little easier with Kristaps Porzingis out for Boston. I also want to point out that Dean Wade logged 24 minutes in Game 4. He didn’t do much with them, but he was at least out there.
I will circle back and give an update on the Cavaliers once we know who is going to be active for tonight’s game. And this time around, it will be a timely update.
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