UPDATE: Golden State Warriors shooting guard Moses Moody has been listed as questionable for tonight’s game.
The sixth edition of the SoFi Play-In Tournament will get underway today as the No. 7 and No. 8 seeds in both conferences will match up. The East teams will suit up first, with the eighth seeded Atlanta Hawks traveling to face the seventh seeded Orlando Magic at 7:30 p.m. ET. The West teams — the Memphis Grizzlies and Golden State Warriors — will play at 10 p.m. ET.
Obviously, with only four teams in action, there aren’t too many options, which is why finding value from cheaper players is paramount. Here are three players I like for tonight’s action.
Set your DraftKings fantasy basketball lineups here: NBA $400K Play-In Special [$100K to 1st].
SG/SF Moses Moody, Golden State Warriors vs. Memphis Grizzlies, $4,100
Arguably the most shocking part of the Warriors’ 124-119 overtime loss to the LA Clippers that relegated them into the Play-In Tournament was the absence of Jonathan Kuminga ($5,100), who, despite being a more highly-touted all-around talent than Moody — the man he was picked seven spots earlier than — doesn’t offer enough shooting to exist in cramped lineups featuring both Jimmy Butler ($8,000) and Draymond Green ($6,300). At least in theory, Moody does — he shot 37.4% from deep this season, although he was somewhat more inefficient after Butler’s acquisition — and his playing time is consistent enough that he’ll put up moderate fantasy output.
He’s also not enough of a threat offensively to draw too much of the Grizzlies’ defensive attention, and most of Memphis’ stout defensive playmakers — like Jaren Jackson Jr. ($7,300), a Defensive Player of the Year contender — will be focused on slowing down Stephen Curry ($9,300), Butler, and Green. I imagine Jackson will shadow Butler, while Desmond Bane ($7,800) will be used predominantly on Curry. That leaves Ja Morant ($8,900) to end up on the Moody assignment, and he’ll be looking to conserve some energy to shoulder his gargantuan role on offense. Morant has graded out as a net-negative defender this season. The broken wrist that rookie Jaylen Wells suffered in a scary fall near the end of the season will hurt Memphis here.
PG/SF Terance Mann, Atlanta Hawks at Orlando Magic, $3,500
Rookie first overall pick Zaccharie Risacher ($4,500) has been one of my favorite plays in this column all season, as despite his inconsistency, I strive to catch those moments of magic like his performance against the Brooklyn Nets last Thursday, in which he scored a season-high 38 points (54.5 FPTS). He’s going to be a solid player in the NBA for years to come, but I simply can’t trust a relatively raw 20-year-old in a playoff environment, and I’m not sure Quin Snyder will, either. Instead, I’m going to go with a guy who’s played a fairly big role for Atlanta since coming over from LA and recently recorded 19 points, three rebounds, and four assists (28.25 FPTS) in the season finale against the Magic, a game in which Trae Young ($9,100), Dyson Daniels ($7,000), and Onyeka Okongwu ($7,500) all sat and Risacher played less than 10 minutes. He won’t get 30 minutes again, obviously, but he has averaged nearly 23 minutes and 10 points per game as a Hawk.
Ordinarily, I wouldn’t expect too much from Mann against the Magic, who posted the league’s second-best defensive rating during the regular season and ended the season on a high, winning seven of their final 10 games. But Orlando’s strategy for this game is sure to be simple: sell out to defend Young and dare anyone else to beat them. Mann has proven his playoff mettle before as a Clipper, most notably in Game 6 of the 2021 Western Conference Semifinals, when he scored 39 points to expedite the end of the Donovan Mitchell-Rudy Gobert era in Utah. Snyder — who coached that Jazz team — knows Mann’s playoff pedigree all too well.
SG Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Orlando Magic vs. Atlanta Hawks, $3,800
Caldwell-Pope was a much-maligned signing throughout the first half of the season after he left the Denver Nuggets, with whom he won a championship in 2023. To be fair, prior to the calendar’s turn to 2025, he’d averaged just 8.7 points per game, shooting just 39.3% from the field and 28.9% from beyond the arc. However, since New Year’s Day, he has been excellent, shooting 47.8% from the field and 39.2% from beyond the arc. His three-point shooting has proven to be a valuable asset to Orlando, which was by far the worst three-point shooting team in the league this season. He’ll also help provide solid perimeter defense on Young, especially since the Magic’s defensive ace, Jalen Suggs, went down with a season-ending quad injury at the start of January.
Thanks to its average defense and lightning-quick pace, Atlanta has been a frequent fantasy target this season and allowed the fifth-most fantasy points to opposing shooting guards. The Hawks were slightly better after adding Okongwu to the starting lineup on January 20, but still, since his promotion, they’ve allowed the fifth-most points and 11th-most assists and also allowed opponents to shoot the fifth-highest three-point percentage. With Daniels and Okongwu chasing Paolo Banchero ($9,500) and Franz Wagner ($8,500), one of the Atlanta’s weaker defenders — Young or Risacher — will get put on Caldwell-Pope, given that he’s not a huge threat off the dribble.
