After two pretty fantastic games in the two series that have been competitive so far last night, the first round of the NBA playoffs continues tonight with three more contests. The Los Angeles Lakers — who were the only home team to lose Game 1 — seek to bounce back, while the Indiana Pacers and Oklahoma City Thunder will hope to extend their leads to 2-0.
With only six teams in action, options are limited, which is why finding excellent production on the cheap is pivotal. Here are my three favorite value options for tonight’s games:
Set your DraftKings fantasy basketball lineups here: NBA $400K Shootaround [$100K to 1st].
PG Ryan Rollins, Milwaukee Bucks at Indiana Pacers, $4,100
Rollins’ salary dipped by $700 after it broke that Damian Lillard ($8,000) would return after missing more than a month due to deep vein thrombosis in his calf. I think that’s too much — while Lillard’s recovery is nothing short of a miracle, my expectations of him are low for the time being. He’ll almost certainly be on a minutes restriction, and although Doc Rivers hasn’t yet announced the specifics, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Rollins and Lillard each receive somewhere between 20 and 24 minutes tonight. That should allow Rollins, who had plenty of big performances in limited time during the regular season, to put up good value for his salary.
He didn’t have the greatest Game 1, recording five points, two rebounds, three assists, and one steal (14.5 FPTS) while making just two of his eight shots and one of his four three-point attempts. While he was mostly guarded by Andrew Nembhard ($4,700), a stellar player who might receive All-Defense consideration, Nembhard’s minutes will probably be more directly tied to Lillard’s tonight, leaving Rollins to attack a weaker defender, either Tyrese Haliburton ($8,200) or the smaller but more technically sound T.J. McConnell ($3,800).
C Jaylin Williams, Oklahoma City Thunder vs. Memphis Grizzlies, $3,800
So much for being unprepared — Oklahoma City came out the gates firing in Sunday’s Game 1, building a 50-point lead by the end of the third quarter and ensuring that neither team’s starters would have to play in the fourth. Ultimately, the Thunder won, 131-80, the largest Game 1 margin in NBA playoff history. Scarily enough for Grizzlies fans, I think this kind of performance is relatively sustainable: soon-to-be MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander ($10,300) scored just 15 points (29.8 FPTS), Jalen Williams ($8,100) missed all four of his three-point attempts, and Oklahoma City had 15 turnovers.
Normally, Williams would’ve been largely iced out of the rotation in the playoffs — he played just two total minutes in the first half — and wouldn’t be a valuable fantasy asset, but he played 19 minutes in Game 1, making three of his five shots and scoring nine points with five rebounds, three assists, two blocks, and a steal (25.25 FPTS). Game 2 likely won’t be another 51-point win — at some point, Tuomas Iisalo’s going to need to make some adjustments, as will Jaren Jackson Jr. ($7,100) — but it’s not unreasonable to expect there to be some garbage time. Garbage time means more opportunity for Williams, whose three regular-season triple-doubles trailed only Nikola Jokić, Domantas Sabonis, and Alperen Şengün among centers.
SF/PF Jaden McDaniels, Minnesota Timberwolves at Los Angeles Lakers, $4,900
I’m sure that McDaniels, a streaky shooter, can’t reasonably be expected to go off for 25 points (42.75 FPTS) on 11-for-13 shooting every game, and Los Angeles shouldn’t be incredibly concerned about losing Game 1 despite ceding home court to one of the league’s hottest teams. It was his best fantasy performance against a decent team since February 24, so some regression is reasonable. But on Saturday night, he killed the Lakers on the same play over and over and over again — Anthony Edwards ($8,700) would isolate, Luka Dončić ($10,800) would fight to stay in front of him, Edwards would kick to an open shooter on the wing — usually McDaniels or Naz Reid ($5,400) — and that shooter would knock it down.
That was J.J. Redick’s strategy in his playoff head-coaching debut: slow down Edwards — which his team did pretty effectively, holding him to 22 points (49.0 FPTS), and hope the rest of the team misses. Unless Redick changes his strategy by putting stronger defenders on McDaniels and Reid, the six-foot-nine wing should get plenty of open shots on Tuesday. All three of his three-point attempts on Saturday were wide open (meaning the closest defender, which was Dončić twice and Dorian Finney-Smith ($4,000) once, was more than six feet away). This season, McDaniels shot 36.0% on wide-open triples, a still-respectable number, so he should remain fantasy-viable if he hits a few shots and forces a steal or two off of Dončić.
