Prime-Time First TD Bets — Monday Night Football, Week 16
Alex Christenson
It’s looking like another fun NBA DFS slate Saturday. Hopefully, we can avoid the illness that seems to be making its way through the league. It costs us in a big way Friday (looking at you, Grayson Allen and Milwaukee beat writers) but there are a bunch of good spots tonight to talk about.
1. Tyrese Haliburton scores 9.8 points per game as the pick-and-roll ball handler
The Pacers face the Raptors Saturday. On the surface, they aren’t very vulnerable to the pick-and-roll ball handler — they’ve only allowed 10.8 points per game, in the top half of the league. However, they’ve faced the fewest field goal attempts per game in the NBA. The effective field goal rate is 47.1%, which is in the bottom half of the league. Haliburton is running this play type at a 51.6% frequency and that’s the second highest in the league. Once we add in his 1.38 points per minute, the salary still makes sense for Haliburton.
2. The Hornets are 21st in points allowed in the paint
They face the Heat again Saturday, and this is a prime Bam Adebayo spot. If Tyler Herro misses once again, Adebayo is up to a 23.8% usage rate and 1.10 points per minute while he also has 6.6 paint touches per game. Some folks may balk at the salary, but he battled foul trouble last time and is in an excellent spot to accentuate his scoring.
3. Portland is up to sixth in defensive rating
This could be important because they face the Dallas Mavericks and Luka Doncic has been one of the best fantasy players this year. He has played two subpar games in a row, but now he has to face a vastly improved Blazers lineup and he could be a bad spend0up tonight. Of course, it feels scary to say that Luka could disappoint, but the advanced DvP tool tells us that the matchup is very difficult for him in this one, and we may be able to find better ways to spend our salary.
4. The Pelicans are allowing a 32.9% field goal rate from a 3-point distance
Saturday’s late game features the Rockets and the Pelicans, and some of the Houston shooters could be faced with a challenge. New Orleans has defended the 3-point line extremely well, which makes me hesitate about a player like Jalen Green. Generally, he needs to score to make his salary work because he’s only averaging 6.8 rebounds+assists. He’s attempting 7.8 shots from downtown and if the scoring fails him, he could bust hard even in a strong game environment.
5. The Rockets are 29th in defensive rating
Even with a spread of 10.5-points, I’m very interested in this matchup overall as both teams are in the top 17 in pace and the Rockets still can’t stop anyone. My largest focus is Zion Williamson, who is leading the squad in usage rate at 28.8% and has a clear path to dominate in the paint since Houston is in the bottom five in points allowed. We can also play Brandon Ingram or CJ McCollum.
