NBA DFS Picks & Building Blocks: Jamal and The Joker (May 12)

After missing 15 of 18 (83.3%) of his field goal attempts, including all four from beyond the arc in Game 2, Murray was 11 of 21 (52.4%) while splashing two of five from downtown. He also had a trio of takeaways, giving him five steals in the last two games after garnering just one in his first six playoff performances. While this feels like it may be chasing points, it really is not considering, in his 39 playoff games prior to this postseason, Murray averaged 39.8 minutes and 19.9 field goal attempts with a 48.8% conversion rate. This culminated in 26.3 points, 5.3 rebounds, 6.9 assists, and 1.5 combined blocks and steals. If he does anything along those averages tonight, he will have his supporters grinning from ear-to-ear.

Nikola Jokic played like a three-time NBA MVP on Friday, racking up 24 points, 14 rebounds, nine assists, three steals and three blocks. The Joker was +30 while on the court and paramount in pushing the Nuggets to a 117-90 victory. No other player is within 15 median fantasy points of his mid-60s projection, but there are a passel of players in the 40s. Clearly there are ways to craft lineups without the reigning MVP, but he is still a core building block on Sunday.

Michael Porter Jr. currently is projected to be on one in four rosters for the DraftKings and FanDuel featured tournaments. He was efficient in Game 2, knocking down 6 of 10 (60%) from the field, including four of five 3-pointers. However, the 30 fantasy points were disappointing, but he also had five fouls. That combined with the lopsided game led to him playing nearly 10 minutes less than what is typically seen from the tight Denver rotation. Expect a bounce-back game tonight.

Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (right abdominal strain) and Reggie Jackson (left calf) are both questionable, though expected to play. Caldwell-Pope needs minutes to compile his fantasy production as he is mostly doing the little things in the postseason. It is OK to skip him tonight in favor of one of the other discount dandies from the first game or rolling the dice with teammate Christian Braun. Jackson has been dinged up all postseason, first with a sprained ankle and now with a sore calf. His minutes have fallen from 13.7 to 10.2 to 8.2, with most of his run in Game 3 occurring in mop-up duty. If he were healthy, we would want to roll the dice, but since he is not – well, we can skip over him too.

After barely leaving the bench in the first round, Justin Holiday has been a key part of providing spacing against the Timberwolves. The eldest Holiday brother should see around 10 minutes in the first half, and he is also live to get blowout run in a lopsided game.

Peyton Watson is out of the rotation, getting just 13 seconds at the end of the first half and nine seconds at the end of the third quarter, before joining the rest of the understudies for the final five minutes of the game. Caveat Emptor, even in the single-game format.

Jaden McDaniels is the most popular Minnesota player on both DraftKings (39.4%) and FanDuel (42.6%) as a strong punt option. He should approach 30 minutes with his defense against Murray and Porter, which gives him time to gather fantasy points. Karl Anthony-Towns has had two dreadful fantasy performances, surrounding a glorious 50-burger. Of course, that was also the game where Rudy Gobert was out , which allowed KAT to collect more rebounds than usual, along with his only blocked shots of the postseason. This duo cancels each other out for fantasy purposes, pushing even more of the field to Anthony Edwards who has leveled up this postseason, cementing his status as the best two-way player in the game.

Mike Conley, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Naz Reid and Kyle Anderson are tertiary targets, with each losing out to players at their respective positions in the afternoon action.