Happy Tuesday! I hope there were some big scores posted last night. If played in the right combos, there were some juicy scores. If you read Boomer’s Ballers yesterday, you hopefully dodged the LeBron kerplunk and rostered Curry instead. Kyrie had a nice night, but as Keith predicted in his Brass Balls Fade of the Night, Kyrie playing cut into King James’ production coming off his actual effort in OKC on Sunday. Another slate, another shot at getting things right…..or pressing up your winning streak.

Fall in, soldiers!! This process isn’t intended to take long. It’s a skim, if you will. You are starting your research by quickly glancing over the day’s slate and gathering your early intel. Our goal is to give you a head start on today’s action. Keith and I will be back later with picks and analysis for the slate for our VIP Insiders, as well as provide answers to questions as much as possible in the VIP Slack channels.

Daily Fantasy Players are priced by many factors. Some of the key factors are the teams’ seasonal averages in points scored and the pace at which they play. We can assume if a team is expected to score more points than they usually do, players from that team are in a better than usual spot to succeed. We can also assume if a team is expected to play at a faster pace than usual, their players are in a better than usual spot to succeed. Let’s take a quick look and see if there aren’t any of these spots on today’s slate.

As you can see below, we have a shorter 5-game slate tonight. Tipping at 7 pm EST and dropping the hammer at 10 pm EST with BKN @POR.

VEGAS LINES – It honestly all starts here. 200 is the standard for a game in which we can expect fantasy goodness to appear. But, a lot more factors come into play, too. We don’t try to predict blowouts, but red spreads indicate the possibility.

Home Team Road Team Favorite Spread Total Tip-Off Washington Wizards (25-29) New Orleans Pelicans (22-33) WAS -4.5 213 7:00 PM Philadelphia 76ers (8-47) Orlando Magic (24-30) ORL -5.5 209.5 7:00 PM Denver Nuggets (22-34) Sacramento Kings (23-31) PK PK 219.5 9:00 PM Utah Jazz (27-28) Houston Rockets (28-28) UTA -5 202 9:00 PM Portland Trail Blazers (29-27) Brooklyn Nets (15-41) POR -11.5 209.5 10:00 PM

POINTED UP! – The teams with green numbers for +/- PPG (Points Per Game) are expected to outperform their seasonal scoring averages per Vegas. Teams with red are expected to under-perform.

Team Offense Opponent Team Total PPG Total +/- Denver Nuggets SAC 109.8 100.7 9.1 Orlando Magic PHI 107.5 99.7 7.8 Portland Trail Blazers BKN 110.5 103.3 7.2 Philadelphia 76ers ORL 102 95.6 6.4 Washington Wizards NO 108.8 102.4 6.3 Utah Jazz HOU 103.5 98.1 5.4 Sacramento Kings DEN 109.8 107.2 2.6 Brooklyn Nets POR 99 96.5 2.5 New Orleans Pelicans WAS 104.3 102.6 1.7 Houston Rockets UTA 98.5 105.2 -6.7

Lots of good games to choose from tonight. HOU bears analysis because UTA is known for it’s defense.

PACED UP! – Similar to being pointed up, the teams in green should be playing faster than normal while the teams in red should be playing slower. More possessions might mean more opportunity to score points.

Team Offense Opponent Pace Proj. Pace Pace +/- Denver Nuggets SAC 98 102.4 4.4 New Orleans Pelicans WAS 98.4 100.5 2.1 Orlando Magic PHI 96.8 98.7 1.9 Utah Jazz HOU 93.2 95 1.8 Washington Wizards NO 100.1 100.5 0.4 Sacramento Kings DEN 102.4 102.4 0 Brooklyn Nets POR 96.7 96.3 -0.4 Philadelphia 76ers ORL 99.9 98.7 -1.2 Portland Trail Blazers BKN 97.6 96.3 -1.3 Houston Rockets UTA 99.8 95 -4.8

DEN paced up. HOU also paced down.

TOTAL FANTASY POINTS ALLOWED & DvP RANKINGS – This graphic provides a quick glance at how strong or weak a defensive team plays overall, as well as against a specific position. We are looking for green numbers and trying to avoid red numbers, and we are looking to roster a player from the OPPONENT’s team. Example, DEN SG in great spot.

Team Defense Opponent TotalFPA vs. PG vs. SG vs. SF vs. PF vs. C Sacramento Kings DEN 29 23 30 23 29 26 Philadelphia 76ers ORL 28 24 17 27 28 30 Houston Rockets UTA 27 18 22 29 30 21 Brooklyn Nets POR 24 27 19 22 20 23 Denver Nuggets SAC 23 25 27 14 23 22 New Orleans Pelicans WAS 21 14 24 12 15 29 Washington Wizards NOP 19 15 25 28 10 14 Orlando Magic PHI 18 21 5 21 16 10 Portland Trail Blazers BKN 13 16 18 6 21 18 Utah Jazz HOU 2 10 2 3 1 3

Lots of green and not a lot of red. Coincidence every game is over 200 according to Vegas? I don’t think so.

Another easy thing to watch is exhaustion control. Many coaches will rest players on the 2nd half of consecutive games. Basketball can take it’s toll and coaches need to keep their players fresh when they can. Players playing back to back games become prime targets for rest or limited minutes, obviously hurting their fantasy production and value to us. We further watch for situations like 3 games in 4 nights or the dreaded 4 games in 5 nights. We also watch traveling teams with particular interest.

BACK 2 BACKS! – Graphic containing teams we should watch for limited minutes and/or rest days.

Team B2B 2of3 3of4 4of5 Atlanta Boston Yes Brooklyn Yes Charlotte Chicago Cleveland Yes Dallas Denver Yes Detroit Yes Golden State Houston Indiana Yes L.A. Clippers L.A. Lakers Yes Memphis Miami Milwaukee Minnesota New Orleans Yes New York Oklahoma City Orlando Yes Philadelphia Yes Phoenix Yes Portland Yes Sacramento San Antonio Toronto Yes Utah Yes Washington

I am taking injury news out of this for now, as I haven’t found an easy way to pull only the relevant news. Way too time-consuming for something that changes through the day so often, and too time-consuming for a first glance type of article.

If you made it this far, you might want to see/learn more. For information on joining the VIP Insiders, click HERE! You will gain access to:

Private Slack channel exclusively for VIP Insiders, where you find DFS NBA pro Keith Hall actively answering questions and offering strategy advice.

Daily player picks on slates with 5 or more games, only excluding Sundays.

Daily cheatsheets for both FanDuel and DraftKings to help build your lineups.

Early access to any and all semi-private freerolls on FanDuel or DraftKings offered to the DFS Army.

Again, this is not the end-all be-all when it comes to analyzing a slate. This is a first glance to identify targets we may want to dive deeper into. You may, in fact, choose a player in a poor DvP matchup due to other indicators, especially on a short slate night. Don’t overthink this stuff. The concept is to put your players in the best spots to be successful and roll them out. Keith and I will be back later to provide the VIP Insiders with more in-depth player analysis and specific picks for tonight. And, of course, the cheatsheets! (Remembering, of course, cheatsheets come out on slates 5 games and larger.)

One thing I want you guys to know, since there have been questions. I am the writer, Keith is the player picker. You are getting Keith’s picks and analysis…….not mine (outside of the occasional opinion). I am an NBA noob but have a heavy research mind, am a quick learner, and like to write for you. Keith is a talker and, frankly, doesn’t like writing novels, especially in situations where things change rapidly and undo all the work. He will put out strategy articles, but he is more focused on researching the best player picks for you. With the time this consumes, he needed a little help in getting his thoughts put on paper and communicated to you more effectively. Enter me. We don’t want there being any confusion as to where any pick or analysis is coming from. It’s his mind…..my writing.

Head to the Mess Hall, soldiers. Dismissed!