DFS NBA Top Plays: May 28

The most important injuries to watch out for:

N/A – Both teams will be at full strength tonight.

Showdown Strategy:

Showdown NBA DFS is more of a game of strategy than it is of picking the right players. You need to strike the right balance of making sure the lineup you are playing makes sense, while not getting too granular with your rules, which can cause you to potentially group yourself out of the optimal lineup. It is important to try and consider correlation amongst teammates but also remember that you do not necessarily need multiple players to hit their 90% ceiling outcome and in most instances only need them to out-produce their median projection. Additionally you need to think through ownership thoughtfully and understand where our projections might have the most fragility and use that to your advantage to decide whether you think a player is a good play at their ownership levels or a bad play. Below we will go into detail into all of the viable plays on tonight’s slate to try and provide context to each and some rules we are considering.

Game Notes (MIN @ OKC, OKC -8.5, O/U 220.5)

Minnesota Timberwolves

• The Wolves will be fighting for their playoff lives tonight as they face elimination for the first time in the 2025 NBA playoffs.
• Anthony Edwards struggled mightily in Game 3 as the Thunder did everything they could to take him out of the game. While we do have the same concerns that we have had all series with the tough matchup, we are starting our lineups with Ant tonight as we think he is going to place as much as he possibly can and will find a way to be productive when he is on the floor. We think he is an especially strong play at CPTN as we expect him to come in much lower owned than SGA at CPTN tonight.
• After an incredible start to the playoffs in the first two rounds against LAL and GSW, Julius Randle has really struggled in this matchup and has not been great from a real-life for fantasy perspective. He is priced right around Jalen Williams, who is going to be much more popular than him. We like Randle as a pivot off of J-Dub as a way to get different on this slate.
• Nickeil Alexander-Walker continued his exceptional play in game 4 and inexplicably has seen his price come down $200 on DK. He is going to be astronomically high-owned on DK as the most popular salary relief option on the slate. We think he is a very strong play, but you will need to be mindful of how much ownership the rest of your lineup has, as you could end up funneling yourself into very high duped lineups with NAW.
• Mike Conley saw his price decrease by $1600 and is now priced at just $2,800 on DK. He is going to be popular and is another tremendous source of salary relief, but there is a chance that he continues to struggle and sees his minutes cut even further. Similar to NAW, we encourage you to be mindful about what the rest of your lineup looks like from an ownership perspective before plugging in Conley.
• Jaden McDaniels was great in Game 4 and has also seen his price decrease. He didn’t play as much as we thought he would in Game 4, despite avoiding foul trouble. We think with their backs against the wall they could lean into Jaden more, especially if his shot is falling and we once again like him as a mid-tier priced UTIL option on this slate.
• Terrence Shannon Jr. kept his spot in the rotation and is now once again priced at the min on DK. He is a viable salary relief option in all formats.
• Rudy Gobert had another productive game in Game 4 and saw his minutes bounce back a bit. He is a solid mid-tier option on DK.
• Donte DiVincenzo finally had the game we were waiting for last game and his price didn’t move much. After Ant, we could see the Wolves go with a hot-hand approach which makes Donte a very interesting play at his price tag if his shot is falling. We continue to like him as a tournament play in tonight’s showdown contests on DK.
• Naz Reid will be very low owned and as we saw in Game 2, he could close in the right game environment. He is a viable low-owned mid-tier option as people are going to struggle playing him at his elevated price tag.

Oklahoma City Thunder

• The Thunder are one win away from the NBA finals and we expect them to roll out a similar rotation as last game in hopes of closing out the series at home.
• Shai Gilgeous-Alexander continues his remarkably consistent play and is our highest projected player on the slate. We expect another strong performance tonight and are looking to target him as much as possible in all formats tonight.
• Outside of a game 3 clunker, Jalen Williams has been sensational in this series and there is a decent chance he comes in only behind SGA in terms of ownership percentage in tonight’s flagship GPP on DK. It is hard to struggle with his results thus far, but we do have some concerns playing him into such heavy ownership. A very popular build tonight is going to be one of SGA/J-Dub at CPTN, the other at UTIL and NAW at UTIL. These lineups are going to be heavily duped and amongst the three of them, we feel most comfortable pivoting away from J-Dub. This isn’t to say you can’t play all three together, but if you are going to you need to find other ways to make the other 3 spots in your lineup different if you want to avoid highly duplicated lineups in GPP’s.
• We continue to be very bullish on Cason Wallace and Alex Caruso off the bench. Caruso and Wallace are two of our favorite sources of salary relief on the entire slate, as we think their minutes are very secure and both have a chance at being in the closing lineup and delivering a strong fantasy score for their respective price tags.
• Lu Dort has seen a sharp increase in his price. We are less interested in him at these elevated price tags, but he also won’t come with a lot of ownership so he is a fine option in GPP’s.
• Chet Holmgren should come with much less ownership than J-Dub and we like him as a third spend up option in lineups that feature SGA and Ant.
• Aaron Wiggins was a DNP-CD in Game 4 and we can definitely see him DNPing again. Kenrich Williams took his place in the rotation and has been pretty good when given minutes this year. He is a solid source of salary relief on this slate.

Rules/Groups to Consider

While we think it is important to consider correlation and rules on showdown slates, it is important to be careful that you are not grouping yourself out of the optimal lineup by being too stringent on the rules you are making, as sometimes combinations that you think don’t make sense, end up in the optimal lineup and those lineups usually end up having less duplicates which lead to a far better payout when they win. The bigger the contest you are playing, the more you may want to consider being less strict with the rules you are making. With that said, below we will provide some suggestions to some rules/boosts we would consider on tonight’s slate.

Max 2 – Julius Randle, Naz Reid and Rudy Gobert:

• We have recommended this rule in this article throughout every game of the series and would recommend sticking with it once again as the Wolves have been playing far fewer minutes with 2/3 of them on the court at the same time.

Max 2 – Donte Divincenzo, Mike Conley and NAW:

• This is another rule that we have recommended for every game of this series thus far, which becomes tricky tonight given NAW and Conley are two of the best sources of salary relief on the slate. We expect all three of them to come with quite a bit of ownership and their minutes are still tied closely to one another. We like making this rule both from an ownership perspective and from a projections perspective.

Max 2 – Caruso, Dort and Cason

• As mentioned above, Caruso and Cason are two of our favorite plays of the entire slate as we expect them to play a ton. Their minutes are however, still pretty negatively correlated with one another as we think it is unlikely for all three of Dort, Cason and Caruso to close together. We don’t want more than two of them in the same lineup together.