Two of the eight first-round series have already come to an end, as the first seed in each conference — the Oklahoma City Thunder in the West and the Cleveland Cavaliers in the East — both swept their first-round opponents. Three more teams have a chance to join them in tonight’s four-game slate, as the Indiana Pacers look set to finish off the Milwaukee Bucks, the New York Knicks seek to close out the Detroit Pistons, and the Boston Celtics can confirm their place in the next round with a win over the Orlando Magic. Only the Denver Nuggets and LA Clippers are guaranteed a sixth game.
With eight teams in action and nonstop hoops from 6 p.m. ET to 1 a.m. tomorrow morning, this should be good. Here are three players from those games who have good DFS value for tonight’s contest.
Set your DraftKings fantasy basketball lineups here: NBA $300K Shootaround [$100K to 1st].
Schröder had a rough outing in Game 4 during the Pistons’ 94-93 loss, with just six points on two-for-four shooting, although he did make somewhat of a defensive impact with three steals (18.75 FPTS). But he’s played decent defense on Jalen Brunson ($8,800) throughout the series, holding him to 31 points on 12-for-30 shooting, so he should continue to have an important place in the rotation, and his veteran leadership is critical for a young team on the brink of elimination. He’s averaged nearly 30 minutes per game this series and is shooting it extremely efficiently (67.7% effective field goal percentage).
The Knicks also haven’t figured out their preferred strategy for guarding him, as Brunson, Miles McBride ($3,300), and Mikal Bridges ($5,900) have all spent significant time on him. He’s been effective against all of them, shooting four-for-seven against Brunson, three-for-six against McBride, and four-for-six against Bridges. And even though Detroit needs to rely on heavy minutes from Cade Cunningham ($9,800) if it wants any chance at making the comeback, the Pistons have paired both guards for nearly 86 minutes of total game time in the first four games of the series. Detroit has been outscored by 1.3 points per 100 possessions with both on the floor but outshot and out-rebounded New York in those minutes, so I imagine J.B. Bickerstaff will stick with the double-point strategy in Game 5.
The journeyman’s role in the rotation has decreased somewhat in his 17th season, but he provided exceptional play within those minutes, shooting a career-high 43.3% mark from beyond the arc. That’s why he’s in in the fourth quarter: all 23 of his shots this series have come from beyond the arc, all have been assisted, and he’s knocked down 10 of them (18.4 FPTS per game). Although he’s coming off a rough Game 4 performance in which he made just one of his six triples and didn’t see the floor in crunch time as the Clippers lost in heart-breaking fashion, he still made an impact on the defensive end with one block and one steal.
LA needs him to continue playing solid defense, and as long as he does, Tyronn Lue should continue to trust him, perhaps even in the fourth quarter. Although he hasn’t done a great job on Aaron Gordon ($6,000), his primary assignment, he’s held Michael Porter Jr. ($5,500) to just one point on zero-for-six shooting and Russell Westbrook ($5,100) and Jamal Murray ($7,500) each to two points on one-for-five accuracy. Plus, of all the teams remaining in the playoffs, Denver’s defense is arguably the single biggest weakness; the Nuggets allowed the seventh-most points to opposing power forwards during the regular season and haven’t exactly stifled the Clippers’ starting four-man, Kawhi Leonard ($8,400).
It’s fair to say that this postseason hasn’t exactly gone as planned for Kuzma or Milwaukee. The Bucks were hoping to make a deep playoff run behind arguably the best player in the world in Giannis Antetokounmpo ($11,300) and proven veteran role players like Kuzma and Taurean Prince ($3,200), and Damian Lillard was projected to return to the lineup after missing the last several weeks of the regular season with deep vein thrombosis in his calf. But Kuzma recorded zero fantasy points in Game 1 and just 4.5 in Game 4, Prince fell out of the rotation, and Lillard tore his Achilles tendon, throwing the entire franchise’s future in peril. It’s not at all an unrealistic possibility that tonight could be Antetokounmpo’s last in a Milwaukee uniform.
If the Bucks want any chance of making the 3-1 comeback, they’ll need Antetokounmpo to be at his very best. Between Lillard’s initial calf injury and the end of the regular season, he averaged 30.3 points, 11.1 rebounds, and 8.5 assists (62.2 FPTS) per game. With Ryan Rollins ($3,500) limited on offense, expect a heavy dose (possibly 40-plus minutes) of Point Giannis tonight, which should mean plenty of fearless drives to the rim and dimes to open shooters. It’s not a coincidence that, with Antetokounmpo taking primary playmaking responsibilities, Kuzma averaged 15.9 points (27.25 FPTS) per game on 37.2% shooting from deep over his final 15 games of the regular season. 35 of his regular-season buckets were assisted by the Greek Freak, more than any other player.
