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 5 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 3 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. Cleveland comes into the game as 15-point underdogs and has a team total of only 94.5 points.
I had a whole write-up about the if/then scenarios with these injuries, but Mitchell is now being called doubtful to play. LeVert is listed as questionable but is tentatively expected to suit up. He drew the spot start in Game 4 and put up 36 fantasy points in 38 minutes of action. Assuming he’s active, he’s one of the best point-per-dollar options on the slate. Mitchell’s absence will also give a sizable usage boost to the rest of the roster. Darius Garland had a massive 34% usage rate in Game 4 and should play as many minutes as he can handle. Sam Merrill is a good per-minute producer that could see a few extra minutes off the bench.
Our projections team is keeping Allen out of the projections, as he hasn’t played in a couple of weeks. Assuming he’s out again, Evan Mobley will draw the start at center and Isaac Okoro will draw the start at power forward. Mobley has quietly had a very nice series, while Okoro hasn’t been able to take advantage of his increased opportunities. It’s worth noting that Dean Wade logged 24 minutes off the bench in Game 4. I still lean to Okoro over Wade, but both players carry risk given the tough matchup on the road. Max Strus is going to push for 40+ minutes with increased usage and is still cheap across the industry. He usually doesn’t offer much in terms of peripheral statistics, but he had 7 rebounds and 7 assists in Game 4.
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