How to Find Success in Playoff Daily Fantasy NBA, Presented By Netflix's Army of the Dead
The NBA play-in tournament is already going to be exciting, but FanDuel and Netflix's Army of the Dead are teaming up to make things even better.
You can hop into a free-to-enter contest at FanDuel and get in on the action for each night of the NBA's play-in tournament -- all four nights.
There's an added bonus, too. You can get a free NBA Piggy Bank Shot voucher if a lower-seeded team "comes back from the dead" that night to win their game.
What should we be keeping in mind during the play-in games so that we can maximize our success during the NBA playoffs?
NBA Playoffs Daily Fantasy Tips
Minutes Matter
Anyone who has played daily fantasy NBA knows the importance of minutes, and that gets ramped up in the playoffs. Benches shorten, rotations tighten, and starters' minutes climb, on average.
If we use nothing but minutes ranges from last season's playoffs, we can see just how far apart high-minute players can separate in terms of fantasy potential
FanDuel Point Averages by In-Game Minutes | Average FanDuel Points |
---|---|
Under 17.4 Minutes | 6.7 |
17.5 to 22.4 Minutes | 15.4 |
22.5 to 27.4 Minutes | 20.1 |
27.5 to 32.4 Minutes | 25.4 |
32.5 to 37.4 Minutes | 32.7 |
37.5 or More Minutes | 43.1 |
Balancing lineups with players slotted for big minutes will help our lineups ascend the ranks.
Stick With Starters
Here's a snapshot of how the 2019-20 season looked when we split up the regular season and playoffs into starters and bench players (sorted by FanDuel points per game).
Starters vs. Reserves 2019-20 NBA Regular Season and Playoffs |
Average Minutes |
Average FanDuel Points |
FanDuel Points Per Minute |
---|---|---|---|
Playoff Starters | 32.7 | 31.0 | 0.95 |
Regular Season Starters | 29.8 | 24.9 | 0.99 |
Regular Season Reserves | 16.6 | 14.1 | 0.85 |
Playoff Reserves | 15.1 | 11.7 | 0.78 |
We see that starters boost, on average, from 29.8 minutes in the regular season to 32.7 minutes in the playoffs, leaving fewer minutes to go around for reserves.
Even if we account for the lowered minutes and salaries for the reserve players, we see a big downward shift in FanDuel-point-per-minute averages for bench players in the playoffs.
Of the 226 individual games with at least 40 FanDuel points in the playoffs last year, 219 (96.9%) of them came from players who started that game. Such players averaged 38.4 minutes.
Home Splits Are Overrated Right Now
There's a narrative that role players fare better at home, but with minimal crowds, we saw a virtually even split in per-minute FanDuel production for starters (0.94 at home and 0.95 on the road) and for reserves (0.77 at home and 0.78 on the road) during last year's postseason.
Check Our Projections
This is an easy one, but numberFire offers free, updated NBA player projections that can help identify the best value plays and the best stars to target for each and every slate during the NBA play-in tournament.
So prioritize minutes, study our projections, and survive the NBA playoffs.