Week 11 NFL Moneyline Underdogs
Mike Randle
The Nuggets won a massive Game 3 against the Lakers Tuesday night and are now one more win away from tying up the Western Conference Finals at two games apiece.
Of course, even with just one game on each night, many people are playing NBA DFS. So we’ll take a look at the best DFS plays for Thursday’s game.
Denver Nuggets
No surprise here, but Denver continues to run everything through Nikola Jokic and budding superstar Jamal Murray. So far in this series, Murray is averaging a healthy 94.3 touches per game, just ahead of Jokic’s 93.3 touches per contest. Murray is also averaging 8.2 minutes of possession per game, tied for the most among anyone remaining in the postseason. Between the combination of playing time and usage, Murray makes for an elite option to choose from as a captain in showdown, despite being in the same game as the likes of LeBron James and Anthony Davis. Jokic, meanwhile, has continued to produce a strong floor, though he doesn’t have the scoring ceiling as someone like Murray. Some issues with fouls have kept him from logging 40 minutes in any game so far this series.
In the two competitive games of this series, Michael Porter Jr. has logged 22 and 20 minutes. Head coach Mike Malone just can’t trust him to play meaningful minutes due to his defensive struggles. We know he can score the basketball, so perhaps you can make the case for him if you MME. Of course, Jerami Grant is the much safer bet for minutes and is coming off a game where he scored 26 points, a playoff career-high. As it stands, Denver only has two players that you should project for 40-plus minutes, while Grant and Paul Millsap have a potential path to get there. But Denver is going to give Monte Morris, P.J. Dozier, Gary Harris and Torrey Craig plenty of run, too.
Los Angeles Lakers
It was odd to see Anthony Davis haul in just two rebounds in Game 3, but he remained plenty involved on the offensive end, scoring 27 points. He still leads the Lakers with a 30.5% usage rate over the course of the series and the Nuggets simply don’t have the bodies to defend him. Millsap is far too slow, as is Jokic, while Grant and Porter are too small. Denver is coughing up nine points per game to the roll man out of the pick and roll during the playoffs, while allowing a healthy 57% field goal percentage off the play type. That two-rebound game is an absolute outlier and I fully expect things to return to normal on Thursday night.
LeBron James, meanwhile, is right behind Davis with a 28.5% usage rate, while he is averaging 87 touches and eight minutes of possession per game. He is also averaging nearly six seconds per touch, which gives him a great chance of finishing many Lakers possessions with either a basket or assist. This Lakers team will continue to run through Davis and James.
Everyone else is up in the air, really. Rajon Rondo has recorded at least eight assists in all three games so far, though his minutes haven’t been through the roof. He reached 30 minutes last game, playing a lot in the fourth quarter as the Lakers made a comeback effort. You’d like him to get to that 30-minute mark again, but Los Angeles is also giving Alex Caruso around 25 minutes a night. Neither player is going to have a ton of usage playing alongside LeBron and Davis, but they probably have the most upside of the role players from this team. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is the best candidate to play 30-plus minutes and if he can hit his corner threes, he’ll most likely exceed value, while the same can seemingly always be said for Danny Green. Finally, Kyle Kuzma has done next-to-nothing during this series and isn’t even attempting that many shots when he is on the floor.
