It was 78 degrees here in STL just 3 days ago, now we see so much snow falling I can’t see my dog when I let her outside. I guess it’s not quite baseball season yet and we still have some NBA to discuss. Here’s your early recon for today’s 10-game slate. Starting with Knicks/Pacers and dropping the hammer on Spurs/Kings.

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.

A strategy I’ve noticed…..and might employ……on bigger slates like this is to “run my Late Games LU in my all day slate.” If you notice that hammer game can really hurt if you don’t have a piece of them. Not so much last night, but usually it’s teams out west that are faster paced and can be higher scoring. When that situation arises, I’ve noticed my late game slate LUs can often outscore my LUs containing earlier games. While many will think this is just coincidental and stupid, I’m going to tell you I think based almost exclusively on the “west games play faster” logic gives this strategy merit.

Let’s start with the spreads and totals for the games and start looking out west to see if that scenario opens up tonight…..

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.

Road Team Home Team Favorite Spread Total Tip-Off New York Knicks (24-34) at Indiana Pacers (30-26) IND -8 202.5 7:00 PM Charlotte Hornets (29-26) at Cleveland Cavaliers (40-15) CLE -8.5 205.5 7:00 PM Minnesota Timberwolves (18-39) at Toronto Raptors (37-18) TOR -9.5 212 7:30 PM Golden State Warriors (50-5) at Miami Heat (32-24) GS -8.5 214.5 7:30 PM Philadelphia 76ers (8-47) at Detroit Pistons (28-29) DET -11 210.5 7:30 PM Los Angeles Lakers (11-47) at Memphis Grizzlies (32-23) MEM -8 205.5 8:00 PM Washington Wizards (25-29) at Chicago Bulls (29-26) CHI -2 211 8:00 PM Oklahoma City Thunder (40-16) at Dallas Mavericks (30-27) OKC -4.5 215 8:30 PM Denver Nuggets (22-34) at Los Angeles Clippers (37-19) LAC -10 213 10:30 PM San Antonio Spurs (47-9) at Sacramento Kings (23-31) TBD TBD TBD 10:30 PM

Again tonight, we see all games over 200 points as projected by Las Vegas. I’m not predicting blowouts in red. I’m merely alerting you to the bigger spreads on the night.

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 +/- San Antonio Spurs SAC TBD 105.2 TBD Sacramento Kings SA TBD 107.2 TBD Detroit Pistons PHI 110.8 101.5 9.3 Memphis Grizzlies LAL 106.8 98.1 8.7 Toronto Raptors MIN 110.8 102.2 8.6 Los Angeles Clippers DEN 111.5 105.2 6.3 Miami Heat GS 103 96.8 6.2 Chicago Bulls WAS 106.5 101.8 4.7 Philadelphia 76ers DET 99.8 95.6 4.2 Cleveland Cavaliers CHA 107 102.9 4.1 Dallas Mavericks OKC 105.3 101.4 3.8 Indiana Pacers NY 105.3 102.4 2.8 Washington Wizards CHI 104.5 102.4 2.1 Los Angeles Lakers MEM 98.8 97.2 1.6 Denver Nuggets LAC 101.5 100.7 0.8 Minnesota Timberwolves TOR 101.3 100.8 0.5 Oklahoma City Thunder DAL 109.8 109.6 0.2 Golden State Warriors MIA 111.5 115 -3.5 Charlotte Hornets CLE 98.5 102 -3.5 New York Knicks IND 97.3 99.1 -1.8

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 +/- San Antonio Spurs SAC 96.4 100.8 4.4 Miami Heat GS 95.1 99.4 4.3 Chicago Bulls WAS 98.6 100.7 2.1 Detroit Pistons PHI 97.8 99.7 1.9 New York Knicks IND 95.9 97.5 1.6 Dallas Mavericks OKC 96.4 97.7 1.3 Washington Wizards CHI 100.1 100.7 0.6 Denver Nuggets LAC 98 98.4 0.4 Memphis Grizzlies LAL 95.3 95.6 0.3 Los Angeles Clippers DEN 98.4 98.4 0 Philadelphia 76ers DET 99.9 99.7 -0.2 Cleveland Cavaliers CHA 95.2 95 -0.2 Toronto Raptors MIN 95.7 94.7 -1 Sacramento Kings SA 102.4 100.8 -1.6 Oklahoma City Thunder DAL 99.3 97.7 -1.6 Indiana Pacers NY 99.6 97.5 -2.1 Minnesota Timberwolves TOR 97 94.7 -2.3 Los Angeles Lakers MEM 98.3 95.6 -2.7 Charlotte Hornets CLE 97.8 95 -2.8 Golden State Warriors MIA 102.3 99.4 -2.9

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 in the 2nd column. Example, the MEM PG is, theoretically, in great spot.

Team Defense Opponent TotalFPA vs. PG vs. SG vs. SF vs. PF vs. C Los Angeles Lakers MEM 30 30 28 28 22 28 Sacramento Kings SAS 29 22 30 23 29 25 Philadelphia 76ers DET 28 24 17 26 28 30 Chicago Bulls WAS 25 28 14 25 19 26 Denver Nuggets LAC 23 25 27 14 24 21 Charlotte Hornets CLE 20 12 15 20 25 15 Washington Wizards CHI 19 15 25 27 10 13 Golden State Warriors MIA 16 26 11 13 13 24 Dallas Mavericks OKC 15 11 9 8 27 9 Minnesota Timberwolves TOR 14 23 16 17 9 8 New York Knicks IND 11 20 13 11 7 16 Indiana Pacers NY 10 7 19 6 14 14 Oklahoma City Thunder DAL 9 19 23 9 5 4 Detroit Pistons PHI 8 13 10 3 16 12 Los Angeles Clippers DEN 7 4 8 10 8 19 Memphis Grizzlies LAL 6 6 4 15 11 1 Toronto Raptors MIN 5 3 12 4 4 17 Miami Heat GSW 4 2 3 18 3 6 Cleveland Cavaliers CHA 3 18 6 7 2 2 San Antonio Spurs SAC 1 5 1 1 6 5

I don’t think it’s front page news to tell you the teams at the top of the table are typically poor on defense, and the teams at the bottom are not teams we get excited about targeting.

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. Maybe hard to see the colors, but yellow is caution, orange is a little more caution, and red is just crazy.

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

Noteworthy that both DEN and WAS are on B2Bs and 3of4. Playing 3 games in 4 nights is tough enough, let alone when the last two games are on consecutive nights.

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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.)