Prime-Time First TD Bets — Monday Night Football, Week 16
Alex Christenson
There is a six-game NBA main DFS slate Saturday. With the NFL playoffs are the main focus for some, the NBA will be on the backburner for a lot of players, except for us. The slate looks pretty interesting and while we’re going to have a chalky team, there are routes we can take to go in different directions. Let’s talk about five stats to help get some lineups going.
1. Robert Williams scored 17.25 DK points in his last game
That’s a pedestrian number for the Boston big man, and you can go a step further and say that it would actively hurt your lineup. However, the most important number to me was the 29 minutes he played, a new high for this season. The Celtics are still going to be without Jaylen Brown so there are a couple of extra minutes to go around for everyone. Now we get into the matchup and the Hornets are about the best one Williams can ask for.
Charlotte is also 21st in points allowed per game in the paint and 29th in rebounds allowed this year which fits Williams to perfection. If he gets another 26-28 minutes here, he can hang 35 DK against the Hornets.
2. T.J. McConnell played 26 minutes Friday
We know the Pacers are going to be missing Tyrese Haliburton for the next couple of weeks at least. I’m not sure that DraftKings got the message as he is still only $4,000 and that’s just an absurd price tag. The Pacers may get scorched in this matchup but McConnel came off the bench last night and still has scored 1.03 points per minute and the salary went backward. We saw a ton of Pacers chalk last night, and we should brace for it again here.
3. The Hawks allow the fifth-most points per game in isolation
Atlanta played last night and had to travel while the Raptors waited at home, and Pascal Siakam could be in for a big game this evening. He’s leading his team with 1.29 points per minute and he’s fifth in points per game scored in isolation, something that I wouldn’t have guessed before the year started. Siakam has continued to evolve this year and since he’s averaging over 37 minutes per game, he always feels like one of the safest investments on any slate. Atlanta is also sixth in pace, a big jump from 27th for the Raptors and the FTN Advanced DvP Tool tells us there are a lot of ways for Siakam to exploit this matchup –
4. Joel Embiid is scoring 5.9 points per game in the post-up
He trails only Nikola Jokic in that metric and the Utah Jazz allow the second-most points in this play type to go along with a 52.7% field goal rate. Only the Hornets are worse against centers this season and Embiid is scoring a healthy 1.62 points per minute and this game has 35-plus real points written all over it. Utah will have to roll out rookie Walker Kessler to try and contain Embiid and that is a major disadvantage for the Jazz, something I expect Philly to exploit. It’s also not going to help them that they are 21st in fouls per game and the big man for Philly is second in free throw attempts per game. Embiid is also second in frontcourt touches on the year and he may wind up being my favorite spend-up option on this slate.
5. Luka Doncic played 53 minutes in the last game
This is a difficult decision because in general, I would think that Luka could be a fade just due to the fact of how many minutes he played in the double-overtime thriller against the Lakers. They are only 3.5 games ahead of the 10th seed in the West, which is a factor, and Dallas is also still without three rotation players. They could also be without Christian Wood, who injured his ankle late in the game. If that’s the case, Luka has a 147-minute sample of the players off the court and is at a 44.6% usage rate and 1.86 points per minute. I’m not sure how Luka is handling this level of workload but both of these teams are in the bottom 10 in defensive rating. It is likely going to be a choice between Embiid and Luka as to who is my expensive anchor.
