 What's going on and welcome to the NBA DFS Q&A show. My name is Tom Vecchio. I'm here every Wednesday taking your questions about the night's NBA slate. You can find it on the Feindl, YouTube, Twitch, Twitter, Facebook pages. You can follow me on Twitter at DFS underscore Tom. We have 11 games. There's a lot to get to. Let's hop right in. Starting off with some questions. Born to Laugh is asking any three by twos. I like that is the three by two bet on the Feindl sports book. Will there be two plus threes in the first three minutes of the game? So there would be something like tonight. Obviously liking the Suns and the Warriors, where I would say have plenty of scoring upside there, of multiple players on the floor at any given time that can knock out some three. So I like that one for a little bit of plus money. Certainly liking Grizz and the Spurs. This one also at plus money is looking good. King's Rockets you could also go to. This has a lot of juice. So it's looking like it's likely to hit, but it's actually not a spot that you want to be laying that much juice at minus 142. And then I would probably come down to the Hornets and the Knicks. Minus 124, a little bit of juice there if you're taking all of these solo. You know, the Hornets allowing the second most made three porters. So I would certainly look to the Grizz and the Spurs, the Suns and the Warriors, King's Rockets, depending on how much juice you are willing to lay. Born to Laugh is also asking the sixth man question, which player is going to be coming off the bench for a team that A, probably shouldn't be too popular, but also has some good scoring upside. There's a lot of options tonight. You know, one of them for me is going to consistently be Bogdan Bogdanovich for the Atlanta Hawks. Great three point upside for him in a lot of these recent games. Obviously a very, very favorable matchup going up against the OKC Thunder. It's a high over under also a huge spread in this game, but we should still see the Hawks players playing plenty of minutes because they are in a spot where like they have added motivation, I don't want to say added motivation. They have just flat out motivation because they need to secure their spot in the play-in. And that's one thing we need to account for for some of these teams is, are they locked into a play-off spot? Are they completely out of the playoffs? Are they fighting for seeding, fighting for the play-in spot where their starters could be seeing a few more minutes than usual, whatever it might be. So I'd go to those two easily. Dante DiVincenzo, also a great option on tonight's slate. Lonnie Walker, always, always a solid option. And then potentially looking to, you know, like an auto porter coming off the bench for the Warriors that can fill up the statue a little bit. Hopefully we see a little bit more scoring from him would be good. Maybe Jalen Nowell for the Gris. Grim on YouTube is asking Grant Williams or Justin Anderson, which vote is the better play to start? So, you know, Grant Williams, not really a player I'm going to tonight. You know, Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum back in the lineup and this game is a 2-13 over under. Also going up against the Heat, one of the top five teams in defensive rating this year. Meanwhile, Justin Anderson, while he's not an amazing player in any capacity, this game is a 2-35 over under. We're talking about 20 points higher. So I'm suddenly looking to Anderson at a similar salary, just taking the better game environment overall for the Pacers and the Nuggets. This game is going to be one we want to be targeting. We know Yoko should be pretty popular on tonight's slate. You know, going up against the Pacers, it's going to be just a dominant performance from him. Grim is also asking Bruno Ferdinando, Greg Brown or Timothy Lulo-Cabarro for the Atlanta Hawks, one of those sets of players. So we're dealing with Houston. Obviously they are very, very shorthanded and let's switch to the Rockets real quick. He should be getting the start at center because both Christian Wood and Alperine Sangoon are out tonight. So at $3,500 going up against Sacramento who are the second worst team in the league against Centers. That's, this is a great matchup and he's minimum salary. So I want to be attacking this game not just via the center position but really all options on both sides. So I would be siding with him number one. Greg Brown I think is also solid. I wrote him up today in terms of the three value plays I like, TLC for the Hawks is also good if Hunter doesn't start. He's one of the players we're kind of keeping an eye on. So I would also go to him but I would probably go to them in that order for the players, for them. DJ on face was asking, would you like today's boost? Let's see today's boost. So 3.1, right? Yeah, Booker, Thompson, Jordan Poole to make 10 plus threes combined. It's only plus 110. Like it seems like a pretty straightforward bet. You know, we're seeing a lot of these players, you know, take seven, eight, nine attempts per game and they're knocking down four or five, six per game. So I mean, Jordan Poole, he's gonna hit five, six on his own. Clay Thompson of course can always hit five or six. It feels like two of these players can get it done just by themselves. So yeah, I like today's boost. It's obviously not like amazing odds but it's plus money on something that is looking pretty solid for, especially for a game that has a high over and it was a two, 20. Where am I looking? NBA here, two 20, two 21 for this game. Saban is asking, favorite bets for tonight and then favorite value options we'll get there. So the bets that I've made so far tonight would be David on Mitchell for the Sacramento Kings, the over on his PRA. I got it at 32 and a half. Had a little bit more juice. I think it was minus 118 for David on Mitchell. It's now up to 33. Great usage for him. Amazingly easy matchup, right? Going up against the Houston Rockets. He's putting up basically over 30 plus combined just for points and assists. Now he's obviously not adding a massive amount of rebounds on a nightly basis but this game with a super, super high over understings at 239, it opened up a little bit higher is a spot that we wanna be looking. So I took David on Mitchell, the over on his PRA. I took the over on three and a half, made threes by Desmond Bain for the Memphis Grizzlies. This game is also looking very solid shooting for some plus money there. And then RJ Barrett, the over on his PRA for the Knicks which is at 34 and a half. Let's double check this for RJ Barrett. I got it at 34 and a half. It's 35 and a half now. The Knicks also are technically not out of the playoffs. This is a winnable matchup for them going up against the Hornets. It's also a big pace up spot for them. The Knicks are super slow in pace and the Hornets are super fast. They also don't play a whole ton of defense. So I like the spot for RJ Barrett. A player that can realistically put up 35 real points. Like that's something he has kind of in his bag that the ability to do and his PRA is only sitting at 35. So RJ Barrett going for 28 or 30 plus real points and then adding in a few assists or rebounds is not going to be a shock. So those are the three bets that I made for tonight. The value options that I'll be looking to, again, Greg Brown, you always can be going there. Sederansky for Washington should also be pretty solid. We could be seeing Kevin Love. He's not in the best game environment overall but I certainly do love his production. He's producing things 1.18, 32 points per minute when both Evan Mobley and Jared Allen are off the court for Cleveland. Game environment versus Dallas isn't amazing but just the production per minute and the minutes overall should be locked in for Kevin Love. So Greg Brown, Kevin Love, Dante DiVincenzo, these are all players and then Fernando for Houston now that he should be in the starting lineup. How do you stack the Houston game? Getting extra exposure to this matchup is always a good idea to teams that don't play defense. I would say that Davion Mitchell is probably first and foremost for me getting some exposure there along with Dante DiVincenzo. I'm big on Jason tonight as well, $4,100. He's another value I've been looking to and at that point you can kind of pay up for Kevin Porter if you're looking at jam both the players from this game into one lineup. We're talking about three point upside, two teams that are in the top seven of the league when it comes to all from the pace, two teams that simply do not play defense. They are both in the bottom four of the league for the most fanative points allowed per game to all positions combined. So just plenty of production back and forth from these two teams. There's value here. We have some upside for some players. All good. DJ on Facebook is asking any upside starting Kevin Herter over Dylan Brooks. So Kevin Herter over Dylan Brooks for Memphis. You know, I kind of like Dylan Brooks just in terms of just well-rounded production. That's generally what we get from him. Kevin Herter, you know, we're honestly hoping for him to knock down some threes. Like that's probably where he's gonna be getting his most value. I would probably lean towards Brooks just because this game has a little bit of a closer spread. The overenders are obviously somewhat comparable but you know, if we don't see a whole lot of production from Kevin Herter or the Hawks still blow out the thunder, I wouldn't be surprised. So I would lean towards Brooks in that matchup. Are there any must play options for cash games? Savan on YouTube is asking, I would say borderline that Yokech is a must play. The Pacers are simply not playing defense right now combined with the fact that, you know, the Nuggets are again still in a spot. They're one of the teams that are still in a spot where they need to be winning games. You know, we're, what do we got? Like 10, 11, 12 days left in the regular season. Like they need to be winning games and securing their spot in the playoffs. So Yokech going for, I don't want to just say 50 or 60 plus points. Like he could have a massive, massive game tonight. So I would say Yokech and Davion Mitchell are basically two of my, you know, borderline must plays. You know, it's possible to get to Murray. If you roster Murray at shooting guard and you look to Mitchell at point guard, you also want to, you know, give yourself as much flexibility as possible. You know, I think Oda Satoransky is fine. Like I said, I'm big on Jayshon Tate tonight as well. You know, there's some roster flexibility and you have two players over 10,000. Mitchell's been playing phenomenally as of late. I'll certainly be looking to Kevin Love also at the power forward position just to increase the roster flexibility. So I would say Mitchell and Yokech are like my two borderline must plays. Beth Kneeser is coming here to say hi. How's it going? Always good to hear from you. Yeah, RJ did go to Duke. I'm hoping a big game from him tonight. Like I said, it's like the over on his PRA. I think that the injury situation for tonight is okay. It's not, it's certainly not terrible. Tatum and Brown, they're not in the best game environment. Valentunus and Jerry Jackson are, I would say a little bit more important. We obviously know that Valentunus for the New Orleans Pelicans has a very, very easy matchup against the Trailblazers. Every team facing the Trailblazers right now has an easy matchup. This is a spot where we should see, New Orleans kind of just roll over the Trailblazers because they have no one out there. So if he's not in there, there's a chance that we could be seeing Jackson Hayes start at center, which we have seen before. Earlier this season last year, we have seen Jackson Hayes get to start at center. That means someone from the bench could be jumping in. It could be Larry Nance. Maybe Willie Hernan-Golmes gets to start at center in that circumstance. He's $3,700 that obviously offers plenty of salary relief. Ultimately, I would look towards Hernan-Golmes again as a power forward. I want to be prioritizing getting up to no control, even crossing the town to his $8,900, who's honestly somewhat affordable tonight, going up against the Toronto Raptors. This is also another game environment that I absolutely love, 229, close spread. So this is one of the games that I'm targeting heavily. I would say Minnesota, Toronto, Sacramento, Houston, Memphis, San Antonio, Phoenix, Golden State, Denver, Indiana are, you know, you could choose like just players from these games and you are going to be in a phenomenal spot. Dallas and Cleveland obviously isn't amazing with the 214 over under. The two point spread is fine. Both teams are, you know, second to last and dead last in league when it comes to offensive piece. So I don't love it. We still should see Luka, Kevin Love, maybe Keras Lavert as some popular options, Darius Garland's just playing an insane amount of minutes right now. So we should see them as somewhat popular, but overall this game environment has to be, you know, like a half a step behind or a full step behind these games that have totals that are 20 points higher. So that's where I am, I'm looking tonight where I want exposure to these high over under games, teams that don't play defense, also looking to some players and some teams that are, you know, still have this motivation factor where they have to win for the playoffs, they have to secure their seed, et cetera, et cetera. DJ saying, I'm thinking of taking Portland on the spread tonight, should I bet low if I take it or do you think it will hit tonight? I have no confidence in the trailblazers in any capacity outside of a fantasy perspective, like no betting angles for me when it comes to the trailblazers. Like it's realistic that they lose this game by 25 points tonight. You know, I like Greg Brown tonight. I think you continue to go to Brandon Williams, Keon Johnson, their players from a fantasy perspective and Drew Eubanks. Like I think they have much more fantasy viability, but if I woke up tomorrow and I saw that Portland lost by 25 points, I would not be shocked in any capacity. I don't think, you know, you really should be either just given the, let's just call it, what it is like a lack of talent that they have out on that lineup compared to the Pelicans with, you know, especially Valentunas plays. McCollum, Ingram, Valentunas, I want to say like those three could kind of just beat that team by themselves. So I have no interest in Portland with the roster that they have out there right now. The only team, the underdog team on the spread that I would have interest in covering would probably be the Knicks at plus three at home. Like they still have plenty of motivation. It would be them, maybe the Cavaliers at plus two. We obviously know the Cavs are a good team. They're fighting for their spot. The Mavs are coming off a huge win last night. Maybe the Mavs have tired legs. Like that's what you'd be hoping for. The Cavs have been a pretty solid cover team this year. They are 39 and 33 and three against the spread this year. So I would go to the Cavs, maybe the Knicks at home against the Ornits. So there's certainly a lot going on when it comes to tonight's slate. I think that the players in terms of player props, the lines are very, very tight right now. We want to be targeting the players that are seeing an increase in usage, seeing an increase in minutes. Garland would be another player. I'm kind of lukewarm on tonight. When it comes to the slate overall, these minutes are crazy. We're talking to not just a floor of like 35, we look at a starter like, okay, he's gonna play 33, 35 minutes most nights. I mean, he's up at 40. He has a floor of 38 minutes in a lot of these recent games, just because the Cavaliers are fighting to get out of the plane and kind of secure their spot in the playoffs. So Garland props are super solid. Double, double props for him are also super solid. If you're looking to go to that, let's see what his lines are at because Garland's a player I've been going to pretty recently. Garland's plus 105 for a double-double. That's not too bad. Player performance double, let's see. Garland is there. Garland win plus, Garland double-double plus win. Garland 10 plus assist and a win is plus 320. That's not too bad. Garland three, I don't like the threes. Five plus rebounds. And the 320 on 10 plus assist plus Cleveland to win. That's not so bad for Garland where he's out there putting up 10 plus assist in a lot of these recent games. You figure if he can get to 10 plus assist, they would also be winning that game. Okay, so 320 is something that I have a little bit of interest in. Again, this game overall is okay when it comes to a fancy perspective. I have interest in Kevin Love. I have interest in Luca, a little bit of Keraslo Vert, but a 214 overrunder is, the same thing we said about Miami and Boston where from a fancy perspective, this game's okay. You know, I'm not sure I want to be going to a game that features two good defensive teams and what realistically could be a playoff type atmosphere with the lowest overrunder on the slate for Boston and Miami when there are games that have overrunters that are 20 points higher. So that's really where I'm looking when it comes to a lot of tonight's games, which the games that I'm targeting, I want to be focusing on those. I'm not afraid to simply remove teams, entire teams or players from my player pool. You know, there's an argument to be made about simply removing Tatum and Jalen Brown from the player pool just because I think that there are players around their salaries that are in better spots. I'd rather be spending the salary. I'd rather be going to RJ Barrett. I'd rather be going to Desmond Bain. I'd rather be going to Jordan Pool over Jalen Brown who are all at the same salary. You know, Clay Thompson, Tyrus Halberd, all these players I would say are significantly better than Jalen Brown tonight. Who is listed as probable? You know, he's expected to play. So not worried about his, you know, injury status. The same thing with Tatum. He's listed as probable, expected to play but I would much rather be going to Siakam in a game that has a higher overrunner, a closer spread, not by much but a much higher overrunner at the similar salary for Tatum. What FD score? Yeah, you want to be shooting for, you know, five X, you want to be getting into the 300s. You got to be getting up to the 300s. Especially moving up towards the top of, oh, we're trying to boost your score. So you want to be ultimately, you know, just from like a base standpoint, you want to be locking in players that have a high minutes projection, players that are going to be seeing high usage or an increased amount of usage for whatever my reason could be an injury situation. Now they'll see extra usage when X players off the court. So you want to be locking in high minutes. You want to be targeting good over, good game environments that have high overrunners that present plenty of back and forth action because the more possessions there are in a game that obviously gives the player more chances just to pick up stats, which is why the old, you know, NBA DFS saying of minutes equal money is like players who are just playing minutes out there, just for a ton of minutes will lead you towards making money in NBA DFS because there's a variety of ways the player can rack up fantasy points, right? In NFL, like the player has to have the ball in his hands if he's a receiver or running back in order to get points for a basketball player, him grabbing rebounds and assist just because the game ends 220 to 225 is very, very likely. So a player that fills the stat sheet, you know, kind of like Keldon Johnson or Scotty Barnes, two players, I would say I pretty consistently have a good amount of interest in. They fill up the stat sheet. Yes, the scoring is going to be inconsistent just because he has off nights, but the minutes are solid, the peripheral stats are solid and the game environment hopefully is going to enable him to rack up extra points, extra assist, et cetera, et cetera. Grimm is asking, under more wagers on the Sacramento, Houston game, what would you take the yes bets for the two plus field goals in the first three minutes? Yeah, I like the two by three for this matchup as well. That's always a good one. The more wagers for, in the Sacramento, would you take the bet for the two? Yeah, yeah, that's under the three by two for NBA overall. That's sitting at plus money, right? Kings Rockets or is that minus 142? I mean, this is a game that I'd like just because there's no defense being played and we can certainly see plenty of three pointers from both teams, but the juice is not something I would go to solo. Like 142, I'd probably try and put this with another spurs, like I would try and get this like, yeah, minus 142 just for a solo bet is a little bit too much juice to be laying. That's just my personal take on things. So like a little two parlay at plus 268, is pretty solid. Minus 142 is not a spot that I traditionally look for most bets, especially like something like that. Do I have any final four predictions? Bethany is asking, you know, I would say that this is probably the most boring final four I could possibly remember with all of these just traditional blue blood teams, all these like traditional powerhouses that like I don't follow college basketball a lot. So I just generally root for upset. So I was like looking for like Houston or Texas Tech, you know, one of these sorts of teams to be in it, just to just have some differentiation outside of all these blue blood teams. So my final four, I haven't made any final four bets. I guess I would say, I would take Villanova, there were they plus four, plus four and a half, something like that. I would take Villanova at four and a half. And I don't know, I would like the interest in Duke on the money line. It's actually way too much. So I would maybe just wait until Duke falls behind if they do, and then live bet them, hopefully at even money or close to it. Hopefully they ride the narrative and I don't know, they get Coach K to win, like, I don't know, something like that. But I'm not big on the final four or college basketball overall. And DJ saying take Yukon for the women's tournament. Of course. So that's what you couldn't be doing for that. College basketball is certainly not my thing. So if you want to go into the two by three back to the NBA for the Houston and the Sacramento game, this is a spot that I wouldn't go to solo at minus 142. I'm just not, I'm not a fan of laying that much juice on a solo bet. Overall tonight's slates, injuries are good. I think we're in a good spot. Recap on the bets that I made. I took the over on RJ Barrett points rebounds assist. It's sitting at 33. I'm pretty sure I got it at 32, 32 and a half. I'd have to double check that. The over on, no, I got at 34, it's 35 and a half. Davion Mitchell, I got at 32, it's at 33. And then Desmond Bain over three and a half, made threes going up against San Antonio. Love the volume of shots from Desmond Bain, especially with John Moran out of the lineup. High, high volume of shots, good amount of them coming from downtown, which we always like to see, I don't need five or six for him. We just need four and he'll get to that plus money bet. So I am on board with Desmond Bain tonight, not only from a betting perspective, but also from a fancy perspective. I will say I have a ton of interest into John DeMurray for the Spurs as well. They are another team that has a ton of motivation factor. They need to secure their spot in the play-in. They jumped ahead of the Lakers with the Lakers loss last night against the Mavericks. So they're holding down the 10th seed right now. The Spurs are. So getting them in a spot where they're gonna be scoring plenty of points and they have extra motivation should lead to plenty of minutes and usage for Murray. A player that we know can already put up a double double, triple double almost by halftime in a lot of these matches. So I'm looking to Murray, I'm looking to Trey Young, I'm looking to Davion Mitchell as some of my top guard options on tonight's slate. Looking to Jokic, very, very heavily tonight. He is a player I absolutely wanna be going to. And it's, I wanna say it's realistic to get Young, Murray. Can you get three players over 10K at 4,600? I think that's possible. I think that's, I think that's valuable to do. I'm also a fan of Jason Tate in this game. I like the value with Santa Ransky because he's been in the starting lineup as of late. I mean, three players in your lineup that are over 10K get some deep value in there. Players are gonna be seeing a lot of minutes in great game environments. He's still at 5,400 to work with for three players remaining. You know, this is where I'm going with a lot of built in. It's not gonna be Trey Young. It's gonna be potentially getting to Darius Garland. It's not gonna be them. It's gonna be going to maybe Booker. It's not gonna be that. It's gonna be going to Pool. Obviously, you know, mixing up the player pool a little bit. I wanna keep my, as always keep the group of values that I'm targeting pretty solid and pretty, you know, a tight group of players and the same thing with the studs. Pay up for the studs that I have a ton of interest in. Murray, PRA over 42 and a half. Let's see what the juice is on that. It probably should be pretty even, but this is a player that we know can go for triple double. Minus 122, it's at 40 and a half here. So wherever you're saying at 42 and a half, it's a little bit lower here. So there's a little bit of value potential there for Murray. He's actually scored a good amount in the most recent game, but it's more about the assists and the rebounds, the fact that he put up 20 plus assists and rebounds combined, getting to his normal 20-ish real point. So I like the over on 40 and a half for Murray. If you can find that, not 42 and a half. I like to combine a PRA combos with player performance doubles. Savan is saying on YouTube, not first basket, player performance. Yeah, and that's a good like a correlation thought. It's like, okay, a player is going to be doing X, Y and Z. What is that going to lead to? Like if Murray hits the over on the PRA, he's probably having a double double and puts San Antonio in a spot to win. So that's a good line of thinking right there. DJ's saying, do you like Capella to score 15 plus points tonight at plus 146? Let's see Capella. Obviously, this is a very, very easy matchup for him. I think Capella is one of the centers that I think could have a huge game. And if you're not spending up for Yochich, it's the player that I would probably be going to. OKC, the third most fan to points allowed, they're giving up 22 points per game to opposing centers. Who on this OKC lineup, which is right here, like who's gonna stop them? Like Trey Young dishing out 10, 12 assist to Kevin Herter or Bogdanovich coming off the bench, knocking down threes or down low to clean Capella, just racking up the points is something I absolutely love. So I think Capella at 15 plus points is something he could absolutely go to. He's been there back to that games. He was a little bit inconsistent prior to that, but we do know that their lineup's been changing a little bit. So Capella for that nice plus money at 15 plus points, again, Hawks, a team with motivation. They need to be winning games. They need to be securing their spot in the play-in. They cannot be, even if they're up by 10 or 12 in the fourth quarter, it's not like they're gonna be pulling their starters. They would have to be up by 25 in order for them to pull their starters. I mean, every game's a must-win game for them in a lot of these teams. So if they're up by 25, how are they getting there? It's probably Clint Capella and Trey Young having big games. So I absolutely love the plus money on Clint Capella, 15 plus points against a very, very weak OKC defense. I mean, 560 is a lot for Capella, plus 560 for 20 plus points. I mean, he was 19 and 22 in the last few games, 17, 11 field goal attempts. That's what we like to see. This is what it's more about, the field goal attempts being up there rather than this. So 19 and 22, I mean, that's a big number for Trey Young sitting at plus 25. So Clint Capella might be a player that I'm adding to my betting card for tonight just because the match was so easy. And again, they have motivation in order to keep winning. Again, the bets that I made, Desmond Bain over three and a half, me three's, R.J. Barrett over 34 and a half, PRA, Davion Mitchell over 32 and a half, PRA. Players that see good usage, taking plenty of shots, great game environments, good matchups. R.J. Barrett's playing massively up in pace against the Hornets, again, the Knicks are 28th. The Hornets are sitting up at fourth, massive pace-up spot there. Super high over under for Mitchell, going up against the Rockets. Mitchell has been posting almost a double-double on a nightly basis. And of course, Desmond Bain taking plenty of three pointers with Jama Ran out of the lineup. This is looking to be a great slate. I think we're in for a very, very high scoring slate, just given some of the over-unders that we have. Next week is the final week of the NBA season. We will be back on Wednesday at 4 p.m. to wrap things up. As always, this can be found on the Fandal, YouTube, Twitch, Twitter, Facebook pages. You can follow me on Twitter, at DFS underscore Tom, and until next time, good luck in your contests.