NBA Daily Fantasy Helper: Monday 5/28/18

If you're new to daily fantasy basketball -- maybe you started your DFS journey during the MLB or NFL seasons, or maybe basketball is your sport and this will be your first year giving it a shot -- you're in for a treat. The NBA scene changes hugely on a week-to-week, day-to-day, and -- depending on injury news -- even a minute-to-minute basis, making every slate a unique one that requires an ever-changing approach.

With so much changing so quickly, we're here with plenty of tools to help you out. We have daily projections, a matchup heat map, a lineup optimizer, and a ton of other great resources to help give you an edge in our new Single Game Boost format for the Conference Finals.

For these contests, you'll fill out a five-man roster with a $60,000 salary cap. Those five players include an MVP, a Star, a Pro, and two utility players. The MVP will have his FanDuel points doubled. The Star will have his fantasy points multiplied by 1.5. The Pro gets a multiplier of 1.2. The two utility players will return the standard FanDuel points.

We'll also be coming at you with this primer every day, breaking down a few of the day's top plays.

Let's take a look at who you should target on today's one-game slate.

James Harden ($16,500)

Harden continues to lead this series in fantasy production, averaging 45.9 FanDuel points per game. He also leads Rockets and Warriors players in FanDuel points per game in the postseason with 49.4, and he led the group in the regular season, ranking fifth in the NBA with 53.0. It's no surprise that his big 37.4 minutes per game in this series have translated to strong production, as his 1.50 FanDuel points per minute ranked second in the NBA in the regular season.

Harden has topped 50 fantasy points in three of the six games in this series, and as games have become more crucial, his workload has expanded. He has at least 39 minutes in each of the last three contests, averaging 23.7 field goal attempts in that stretch.

Chris Paul is questionable and sounds unlikely to suit up for Game 7, and that gives Harden's value an even bigger boost. His 41.6% usage rate sans Paul in Game 6 was his highest of the playoffs, and in the regular season he saw his usage rate jump from 35.8% with Paul playing to 37.7% when Paul sat. He also saw a 7% increase in fantasy production in games without Paul.