We have a four-game NBA DFS main slate on Saturday, November 11th, on DraftKings and FanDuel. We have already had some news come down the wire as Jimmy Butler of the Miami Heat has been ruled out for personal reasons on the front end of the team's back-to-back. We're also awaiting Damian Lillard news, which should shift the way we look at the slate, but other than that we pretty much have all the information we need. We have Giannis Antetokounmpo and Trae Young looking to repeat the last performances we saw from them amongst many others. How will the Heat fare without Jimmy Butler, Tyler Herro, and Caleb Martin? All that and more as we break down the top NBA DFS plays of the day!

NBA DFS Tools to dominate tonight's NBA DFS slate!

Make sure to check out today's NBA DFS projections and NBA DFS ownership projections before finalizing your lineups today. We also have the NBA Consistency Report to help identify players that have exceeded value based off their current price tag this season and of course our NBA DFS Lineup Generator!

 

Notable NBA Injury Updates

Teams on Back-to-Backs

Game Flow Notes

I’m bringing you guys some game flow notes because of who we have on back-to-backs today. I want to prepare you for all possibilities on what teams COULD do if they follow trends from earlier in the year.

Golden State: Played 12 guys in total, 10 were legit in the rotation during the first leg of their last back-to-back set. Nobody played more than 32 minutes & six guys topped 20 minutes (Curry, Thompson, Green, Wiggins, Kuminga, Paul). They also only gave Dario Saric 13 minutes (lowest of the season) against Cleveland the last time they played.

Miami: Played 10 guys in total, but had a nine-man rotation in their first back-to-back earlier this year. Herro, Butler, Adebayo, Lowry all played 34+ minutes. Butler sat the second leg of the back-to-back, so maximizing minutes in the front leg was a priority. *Update* Butler is sitting front-end of b2b here.

Boston: This is their first back-to-back this year. Al Horford should re-enter lineup and based on how head coach Joe Mazzulla handled b2b’s last season, nobody will be limited in any real capacity. Brown & Tatum avg. north of 38 minutes EACH on b2b’s last season.

Pace Up Spots

Pace definition: Pace is the total number of possessions a team uses in a game.

*key* Green is elite pace of play, Blue is decent pace of play, & Red is slow pace of play.

Green = Fast Paced team

Blue = Neutral Paced team

Red = Slow Paced team

  • Magic rank: 16th vs. Bucks rank: 5th
  • Raptors rank: 28th vs. Celtics rank: 12th
  • Heat rank: 17th vs. Hawks rank: 3rd

NBA Game Totals

Top Tier Core Plays

Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks

I’d be hard pressed to think Giannis is going to go 16-of-18 from the FT line again, but he’s one of the league’s most dominant players that could be playing without Damian Lillard once again. If Lillard is out, people will jam Giannis into their lineups without care about what everything else looks like. His raw point ceiling is higher than everyone elses on the slate, especially if Lillard is out.

Trae Young, Atlanta Hawks

Don’t say I hadn’t warned you that the Trae Young breakout was coming. It came and the fans in Mexico City saw a vintage outing. Young scored 41 actual points and 65 DKP. He’s now dominated at the FT line his last two games shooting 23-24 there and it’s really helped him offensively. He’s still only shooting 35% from the floor this year but has now topped 44 DKP in four straight games. Young enters tonight’s game at a 31% USG and 1.3 FP/min. Both lead the team.

Bam Adebayo, Miami Heat

The Heat enter Saturday’s game down Jimmy Butler, Tyler Herro, and Caleb Martin, three of their expected six top players this year. The means the keys to the castle are in Adebayo’s hands here. Adebayo has averaged 1.3 FP/min this year to begin with and has been pretty dominant in three of his last four games. He averaged 1.37 FP/min last year in 404 minutes without Butler, Herro, and Martin. He’s one of the best plays, if not the best, per dollar today.

Mid-Tier Core Plays

Kristaps Porzingis, Boston Celtics

Doing some research today brought me to an interesting stat. Al Horford is returning in this game and in the 87 minutes this year that Porzingis has shared with Horford, he’s gone from a 1.13 FP/min player to a 1.32 FP/min guy, which leads the team with Horford on the floor. Not to mention Porzingis was pretty limited on the front end of the Celtics back-to-back because of the team’s big second half and blowout win. I like Zinger in GPPs a lot today.

Darius Garland, Cleveland Cavaliers

We were waiting for the minutes leap and not only did we get the minutes going up, we got the price going down. How about under 7K for the first time this year down? Not only that, but Garland played, as I mentioned, a season-high 36 minutes. He was one assist shy of a double-double last time out and still had nearly 35 DKP despite turning the ball over eight times. The TOs are going to slow down considering he averaged less than 3 per game last year. Garland’s highest scoring outing of the year came against the Warriors two games ago when he dropped 24 points.

Jalen Johnson, Atlanta Hawks

The breakout isn’t coming..it’s here. Johnson’s now starting basically every game at PF with Bey coming off the bench and he’s smashing. He’s put up 34+ DKP in three straight, 9+ rebounds in four straight and has been active everywhere and anywhere. He spaces the floor well, is active on the offensive glass. Miami will have a tough time matching his athleticism in the front court.

Kyle Lowry, Miami Heat

Nobody since Lowry’s arrived in Miami has been excited to play him in FS but desperate times, right? The Heat are without thereof their best players tonight and Lowry is coming off a game in which he nearly triple-doubled. He’s been a .8 FP/min player this year but was over 1 FP/min last year without Butler/Herro. All systems go as he played 34 minutes on the front end of a back-to-back earlier this year.

Value Tier Core Plays

Haywood Highsmith, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Duncan Robinson, Miami Heat

Miami went into today listing Tyler Herro and Caleb Martin out and have since ruled out Jimmy Butler. Here are the cases for all three; 

Highsmith: I’ve loved Highsmith’s ramp up since returning from injury as he went 22-22-22-27 minutes in his recent outing and has been starting at that. He now is playing without Butler AND Martin and should close in and surpass 30 minutes. 

Jaquez Jr.: Once Tyler Herro went down last game, things changed for the Heat’s rotation. They closed the game with Butler, Adebayo, Lowry, Robinson, and…Jazquez. He played the final 13 minutes of the game and was in over Highsmith, the starter. In all three games he’s played 20 minutes this year, he’s topped 20 DKP.

Robinson: Robinson’s had a consistent role with the Heat this year playing 20+ minutes every single game. He’s seen that trending upwards lately as he’s topped 26 minutes in three straight including a season-high 35 with Herro going down. He can space the floor with the best of them as he’s made 2+ three’s in all but one game this year.

Jalen Suggs, Orlando Magic

I want all of the Magic exposure I can get here. Milwaukee is playing at the fifth fastest pace while having the sixth worst defensive rating in the league. Suggs has a solid 20.3% USG this year while averaging 1.02 FP/min. He’s doing a LOT defensively for Orlando and this could be another repeat offensive performance to what it was last time out for him. I like Markelle Fultz too.

Bogdan Bogdanovic, Atlanta Hawks

I was reallllly close to going Saddiq Bey here, but it's really hard to argue with Bogdanovic's production right now. His minutes are soaring, too, as he's now played 27 and 29 minutes the last two games. He's put up 29+ DKP in each game, has 26+ in three straight, is SG/SF eligible and his price never moves. He's going to be popular, which is why in tournaments I'm not against taking a shot on any of the Hawks wings (De'Andre Hunter/Saddiq Bey).

SHEET UPDATE! The grid below is listed as our PLAYER POOLS, not our core plays. We've switched the formatting and the players written up above are the players we're using as CORE options. Everyone in the grid are options we would use too.

Player Pool

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Stacks

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