Cleveland Cavaliers ( -5 ) @ Washington Wizards – O/U: 211

These two teams have met twice this season, with each side winning on each other’s home court.

The Cavs are coming off a heart-breaking loss to the Raptors on Friday night, so we can expect them to come out with a little something extra this afternoon. The up-tempo pace of the Wizards helps mostly everyone on the Cavs’ roster out, especially LeBron James and Kyrie Irving. The Wizards are one of the worst teams against defending small forwards so LBJ is the most preferred play of the two. However, Irving had 44.5 FDP in his only meeting against the Wizards this year.

Speaking of the Wizards being bad at certain things, that list includes defending the three-point shot, so Kevin Love and JR Smith make for great plays in that regard.

The Cavs struggle to do some things as well, mainly defending point guards. John Wall should have a great game today and he’s the recommended play at point guard for the early slate. Wall had 59.8 FDP performance the first time these two met and I like the odds of something similar to that happening again.

The Wizards don’t match up too well against them in many other areas but power forward could be a spot to target; look for Jared Dudley or Markieff Morris there. Dudley had 25 FDP in the last matchup against the Cavs.

Charlotte Hornets @ Atlanta Hawks ( -3.5 ) – O/U: 202

This is the book that Chris Paul wants to read to Kevin Love, the Hawks and the Hornets! No, anyone?

Both sides have some pretty favorable matchups, and this would be the game I’d try to target more value players from on the early slate. These two teams played each other twice in the first three games of the season where the Hawks won twice by a combined five points and then the Hornets put it on the Hawks back on Jan.13 by the score of 107-84.

We’ll start with the Hornets and Nicolas Batum since his price has now dropped to the doldrums of $6500 on FanDuel. He’s been struggling a lot of late and I don’t think today is the day that we’ll see the Batum we all know and love. However, there’s not much greatness at the shooting guard position on the early slate, so it wouldn’t be some Evel Knievel-type risk you’d be taking. Give it some thought, I know I will.

Kemba Walker and Marvin Williams are the two guys I feel a lot more confident in. Both have performed admirably against the Hawks this season and are also coming off very good performances on Friday. Besides Williams, there are other members of the hive that can get busy against Atlanta’s penetrable front court; Cody Zeller, Al Jefferson and Frank Kaminsky will all likely see limited minutes but you will certainly have to take a chance somewhere on a two-game slate.

For the Hawks, it’s a tricky scenario. According to the DvP charts and everyone’s memory of it, Charlotte gives up big games to power forwards. However, I have to pull one of the Lee Corso – “Not so fast, my friends!” on you. In the last three games, Williams has held Thad Young, Kevin Love and Myles Turner all in check; now can he do it to Paul Millsap? I’d be willing to bet that could happen since Millsap has been so inconsistent since January. As I just mentioned, you have to go cheap somewhere on the slate, so power forward is a good place to cut your losses.

Al Horford is the guy I would recommend from the Hawks. It’s not like the Hornets are a reservoir of fantasy points for opposing centers, but they are in the middle of the pack and have been bad at times this season. A lot of that had to do with Jefferson manning the center position, but he is back now. Osmosis on the Hornets’ bench? Let’s hope so, because there’s no a lot to be thrilled about at the center position on this slate.

Trying to figure out which Hawks’ point guard will get more production is becoming the Rubik Cube of NBA DFS. Actually, scratch that – the whole friggin’ NBA DFS is a Rubik Cube. Jeff Teague has played 61 minutes the last two games while Dennis Schroder has played only 32 in that same span. I still don’t trust this situation and you shouldn’t either.

Speaking of ye’ having little faith, Kent Bazemore finally had a productive night on Friday for the first time in what seemed like three years…but it was just weeks. Then again, there are not many options at small forward on the early slate so you may be forced to pray to your God, or someone else’s.

I keep wanting to give Kyle Korver the benefit of the doubt, but I don’t care how much he looks like Kelso from That 70’s Show, he’s still on my shit list.