Tastefully curated today by LineStar Fantasy Expert @GLandry on NBA chat.

The conference finals are here. What’s interesting is before the season began this is who I had picked to be the final four teams. Houston/Golden State has been obvious all season. Cleveland has been up and down throughout the year but I’m ultimately not surprised they are here. Boston is the one who has truly surprised me. With Gordon Hayward breaking his ankle a few minutes into the first game of the season and Kyrie Irving missing most of the second half of the season and the playoffs I really didn’t see this coming. Both of these series have potential to go down to the wire. The western conference will be a battle. The eastern conference will either be a battle or the Cavs will sweep the Celtics. As a Boston fan I hope it’s not the latter but I have to recognize it’s a possibility after witnessing what LeBron did to Toronto. Granted, I didn’t see Boston getting by the 76ers, especially in five games, so I’m not going to be shocked by anything they do at this point. With that said, if you’re still playing showdown slates in NBA we’ve got you covered. Let’s check out how both of these series breakdown from a fantasy perspective.

As always you can feel free to tag me in the LineStar chat rooms @glandry or follow me on Twitter @GP_Landry. I'm always up for talking DFS and would love any feedback about the daily articles so we can be sure they are adding value to your research process.

Eastern Conference Finals

#2 Boston Celtics vs. #4 Cleveland Cavaliers

How Did They Get Here?

• First Round: Cleveland defeats Indiana 4-3, Boston defeats Milwaukee 4-3

• Semifinals: Cleveland defeats Toronto 4-0, Boson defeats Philadelphia 4-1

Season Series:

Cleveland defeated Boston 3-1

• 10/17 @CLE: Cavs 102 – Celtics 99

• 1/3 @BOS: Celtics 102 – Cavs 88

• 2/11 @BOS: Cavs 121 – Cavs 99

Keys to the Series

1) Stop Kyrie…I mean Terry Rozier

Rozier is playing at a Kyrie like level right now. I think everyone knew this kid had some talent but this is just on another level at the moment. The Cavaliers don’t have a point guard (outside of basically James) that can stop someone like Rozier. George Hill is at a stage in his career where he just won’t be able to keep up with the younger, more athletic Rozier. Cleveland will need to figure out another approach. Problem is with the Celtics having so many players who are able to get involved on the offensive end the Cavs will be spread pretty thin on defense. Even if the Cavs fail at this task and Rozier has another big series that doesn’t necessarily mean doom. It will, however, make defeating the Celtics a lot more difficult.

2) Homecourt Advantage

This was the key to the Raptors having success in the previous series and they failed miserably by losing the first two games of the series on their home court. It was over after those first two games. The Celtics cannot let the same thing happen or they will likely be looking at a sweep themselves. If the Celtics can protect their own house they will have a good chance of pushing this series to seven games. It would be a very tall order, even for LeBron, to take down the Celtics in Boston in a game seven.

3) Slow Down LeBron

Obvious I know but the Celtics have to figure out a way to slow down the King. Boston is very good defensively and has several guys they can throw at him. None of them will be able to stop him but it’s possible they can prevent him from beating them single-handedly and force him to get some of his teammates involved. The Celtics are more than capable of stopping the supporting cast members.

4) Al Horford vs Kevin Love

The winner of this matchup could ultimately decide who wins this series. Both of these guys need to have strong performances for their teams to have a shot. They play very different style games on the offensive side of the floor with Love being more of a perimeter player who likes to shoot jumpers and threes despite being a “center”. Horford, is more your classic, low-post guy. Horford is a better defender and he can make Love’s life miserable at both ends of the floor. If he does that it gives the Celtics a leg up. On the other hand, if Love can get his jump shot going and create additional offense for the Cavs it’s going to be a long series (or short?) for the Celtics.

Key Injuries

Cleveland:

• No injuries reported

• Shane Larkin: PG/SG

• Kyrie Irving: PG

• Daniel Theis: PF/C

• Gordon Hayward: SG/SF

Fantasy Outlook

Guards:

We’ll start on the Cleveland side. George Hill appears to be healthy again after playing 28, 35, 35, and 29 minutes in the four-game sweep of Toronto. He had mixed results with two games over 20 fantasy points and two games under 20 fantasy points. The ceiling is low on him but these are going to be one game slates so you’ll need to take a lot of chances. The minutes are steady enough that I have interest. At shooting guard Korver and Smith both played big roles in the series against the Raptors and I would expect this to continue. Korver is the floor guy. He never went under 15 fantasy points in this last series but never went over 25 fantasy points. Smith is the ceiling guy as he can go over 30 fantasy points (especially when he’s playing heavy minutes) but he can also drop a complete dud. Both of these guys are in play with Korver likely being lower owned due to playing slightly less minutes and having a lower ceiling. They are the exact same price on FanDuel and Korver is slightly more expensive on DraftKings. Jordan Clarkson is a complete "mediocre or bust" option (notice I didn't say boom or bust). He played 19 minutes in game four but this is more than likely due to the blowout. He's priced around minimum salary so it wouldn't take much for him to return value, especially on a showdown slate. He’s in consideration. Jose Calderon and Rodney Hood are both off the radars.

For the Celtics, “Scary Terry” had a fantastic series but his production dropped off as it went on but his price increased dramatically. He started the series with 55 and 48 fantasy points when he was under $8K on DraftKings but finished the series with 37, 23, and 28 points while being priced over $8K in those games. He’s going to play all the minutes he can handle as Shane Larkin is going to be on the shelf for the foreseeable future but just know it might be a rocky road. The Celtics have been trying to limit Jaylen Brown’s minutes as he’s been playing through an injury despite the doctor’s recommending he not play. Anytime he’s on the floor he’s dangerous. He’s got a high ceiling. It’s possible the Celtics remove the restriction on his minutes now that it’s the Eastern Conference Finals and he’ll have had a couple of nights off. Chances are I’ll wait for a game and see what happens. Marcus Smart is my favorite guard on the Celtics right now. He’s getting less attention than both Brown and Rozier but you could argue he’s been the most consistent of the three and he’s significantly less than Rozier right now. He had at least 20 fantasy points in every game last round and three games with over 30 fantasy points. His defense will keep him on the floor as long as possible in this series as he’ll likely be one of the guys tasked with trying to slow down LeBron.

Studs: Terry Rozier

Values: George Hill, J.R. Smith, Kyle Korver, Jaylen Brown, and Marcus Smart

Fades: Rodney Hood, Jose Calderon, and Jordan Clarkson

Forward:

LeBron is $20,000 on FanDuel and $18,700 on DraftKings. Insanity. Even at that price I still think you need to just press the lock button. Admittedly, I don’t play showdown slates but I don’t see how you don’t put him in your MVP spot and just move on. Even at this elevated price, without Kyrie Irving or Gordon Hayward on the floor, there is nobody else on either team will score as many fantasy points as he will. Jeff Green’s minutes are all over the place. He played 28, 20, 31, and 16 in the series against Toronto. I think he’s someone that could carry lower ownership on a showdown slate which means you need to take some shots on him and hope you catch him on a night when he gets more minutes. It’s just going to be difficult to predict when that happens. Kevin Love showed up in this last series with 24, 52, 48, and 40 fantasy points. I don’t see how you don’t have shares of him on these one-game slates. After getting more minutes during the series against Indiana, Larry Nance Jr. barely saw the floor against the Raptors. I think we might need a game to shake out what’s going to happen in terms of the matchup with Boston. You could take a shot and hope he gets back to regular minutes again before anyone else thinks to use him. It’s a huge risk but everything in a showdown slate is a huge risk.

For the Celtics, Jayson Tatum is literally as consistent as it gets right now. Here are his fantasy points by game since the beginning of the playoffs: 31, 23, 34, 18, 33, 37, 34, 30, 35, 31, and 36. That’s nine of eleven games with at least 30 fantasy points for a rookie on the big stage. Incredible. He’s as safe as it gets right now and while he hasn’t shown a real ceiling recently he’s shown 50 point upside in the past. Marcus Morris is someone I like quite a bit as I think he’ll be on the floor a lot for defensive purposes to try and stop LeBron. Boston should go back to their smaller lineups in this series with Cleveland not having a true center. I’d expect a lot of Horford at center and a lot of Morris on the floor at power forward. I think Semi Ojeleye finds the floor again similar to how he did against Milwaukee. He’s another guy who can contribute to slowing down LeBron on the defensive end. Ojeleye has no real ceiling but he’ll be dirt cheap and if he happens to pick up even 15 fantasy points as a salary relief player it would help you load up on studs.

Studs: LeBron James, Jayson Tatum, Kevin Love

Values: Marcus Morris, Jeff Green/Larry Nance Jr (need to see how the lineups shake out but one of them should get playing time), Semi Ojeleye

Fades: N/A

Center:

Outside of Al Horford, who isn’t really a true center but is center eligible on FanDuel, I’m not sure I see much impact from the centers in this matchup. I think we see more small ball lineups on both sides. If you recall, in Boston’s first series against the Bucks, they deployed Semi Ojeleye as one of the primary defenders on Giannis Antekountompo and Aaron Baynes played very little minutes since the Bucks didn’t have any big men they needed to worry about. In the last series, with Philadelphia, their strategy shifted as Baynes played heavy minutes to help defend Embiid and Ojeleye was the odd man out. The Cavs profile more like the Bucks with James being the center of their offense and no true big man to really speak of. This is speculation on my part but this is how I see things shaking out. In the regular season, Baynes never played more than 20 minutes in this matchup. Greg Monroe is too much of a defensive liability so I doubt he sees the floor at all. Horford is the only guy here (at least until we confirm how the Celtics plan to use Baynes). He had an excellent series against the Cavs with 38, 37, 36, 35, and 43 fantasy points. Extremely consistent. Against Cleveland during the regular season, he had 28, 27, and 30 fantasy points in their three meetings. Again, very consistent. Hopefully, we can see him reach the ceiling a couple of times in this series.

As for Cleveland, if we are expecting small ball lineups then I’d anticipate Kevin Love playing the majority of his minutes at center matching up with Horford and Tristan Thompson to be a virtual non-factor. It makes sense for the Cavs as ideally they’ll want to have their biggest contributors on the floor as often as possible. If Love plays center then you can have Green/Nance at power forward and then James, Korver, and Smith all on the floor together at the guard positions. These are all the guys who contributed most during the sweep of the Raptors. After his breakout game seven against Indiana where Thompson played 35 minutes and scored 32 fantasy points, he followed it up with a solid 28 fantasy points in 26 minutes performance before crashing back to earth with 4,4, and 10 fantasy points in the final three games. He never exceeded 15 minutes the rest of the way. You could take a shot on him and hope he gets more involved again but obviously, it’s a huge risk.

Studs: Al Horford

Values: N/A

Fades: Aaron Baynes (for now), Tristan Thompson, Greg Monroe

Western Conference Finals

#1 Houston Rockets vs. #2 Golden State Warriors

How Did They Get Here?

First Round: Golden State defeated San Antonio: 4-1, Houston defeated Minnesota: 4-1

Semifinals: Golden State defeated New Orleans: 4-1, Houston defeated Utah: 4-1

Season Series:

Houston wins regular season series 2-1

• 10/17/17 @GS: Houston 122 – Golden State 121

• 1/4/18 @HOU: Golden State 124 – Houston 114

• 1/20/18 @HOU: Houston 116 – Golden State 108

Keys to the Series

Win the Turnover Battle

The Warriors are the top scoring team in the playoffs, just as they were in the regular season, averaging 110.3 points per game. They are also averaging the highest amount of turnovers per game of the remaining playoff teams at 13.4 per game. The Rockets are averaging the least amount of the remaining teams with just 9.7 turnovers per game. If Houston can continue to limit its own turnovers and create additional ones for the Warriors (and capitalize on them) it can lead to easy baskets and a significant advantage for Houston.

Win the Three-Point Battle

We talked about this in the semifinal article as the Rockets led the league in three-point attempts during the regular season and the Warriors led the league in three-point shooting at 39.1%. Houston currently leads the remaining four teams in three-pointers made per game during the playoffs. The Rockets are also one of the better teams in the league at defending the perimeter. Both teams rely heavily on three-pointers in their offenses. In fact, both of the Rockets losses in the playoffs were in games where they didn’t shoot as well from beyond the arc as their opponent.

Klay Thompson

With Steph Curry having to deal with Chris Paul every night and Draymond Green contributing in ways other than scoring, somebody else will need to step up and contribute on the offensive end besides Kevin Durant. The obvious choice for this is Klay Thompson. He’s been solid so far in the postseason averaging 20 points per game and shooting 44% from beyond the arc. He’ll need to keep this going for the Warriors to stay ahead of Harden and company.

Key Injuries

Houston:

• No Injuries Reported

Golden State:

• Patrick McCaw: PG/SG

Fantasy Outlook

Guards:

To be honest, I don’t love Steph Curry in this series. He’s going to be matched up with Chris Paul who is one of the best on-ball defenders in basketball. Paul’s role will be to take Curry out of the picture and while I don’t think he can completely shut him down I do think he can make his life miserable and thus his fantasy production less than ideal. In the regular season series, Curry scored less than 40 fantasy points in two of their three meetings. I can’t believe I’m saying this but I think Curry is a serious fade candidate given what his pricing will be. I’d much rather have Chris Paul who scored 37, 45, and 62 fantasy points in the regular season series. Curry is not a strong defender and Paul should be a huge factor on both the offensive and defensive sides of the court in this series. Paul will also be less expensive than Curry. Shaun Livingston and Quinn Cook are both off the radar unless something changes. They only went over 15 fantasy points each just once during the second round series against New Orleans. Cook had one game where he didn’t play a single minute and both of them averaged less than 15 minutes per game. The Warriors allowed nearly 30 fantasy points per game to opposing shooting guards which puts James Harden firmly in the conversation on these one-game slates. Harden didn’t have any great results against Golden State this season with 51 and 42 fantasy points in their three meetings (he missed one game as well). I’m not going to let the small sample size cloud my judgment. By comparison, he’s significantly less expensive than LeBron James and we know he has a similar ceiling. On paper, this isn’t a great matchup for Klay Thompson. Houston only allowed 20.1 fantasy points per game to opposing shooting guards. Thompson, however, is going to be relatively affordable during this series and he had some success in this matchup during the regular season. He scored 39, 37, and 16 fantasy points in their three meetings. Obviously, the third game wasn’t ideal but in the other two games he was able to produce about a fantasy point per minute and about five times return on his price tag. Eric Gordon will be another value option for these one and two-game slates. He’s the first guy off the bench for Houston and played over 30 minutes in all but one game in the previous series against the Jazz. Gordon scored 34, 55, and 16 fantasy points against the Warriors this season. He started in the second game which obviously boosted his ability to produce fantasy points. It’s the same story with Gordon. He’s extremely volatile. He’ll take a lot of shots. If they are falling then he’ll have a good night. If they aren’t falling then he’ll let you down. The minutes are enough for me to roster him in this situation.

Studs: Steph Curry (I just can’t bring myself to call him a fade – it’s Steph Curry! Just know I like Chris Paul more), Chris Paul, James Harden.

Values: Klay Thompson, Eric Gordon

Fades: Quinn Cook, Shaun Livingston

Forwards:

The best value in this matchup is Andre Iguodala who should get the start at small forward. The Warriors are likely going with small ball lineups in this series with Draymond Green at the center position and Durant playing power forward. Iguodala will play all the minutes he can handle. He had an up and down series against the Pelicans with 21, 37, 14, 35, and 19 fantasy points in their five games. It’s not a great matchup, Houston is strong defensively in this spot and only gave up an average of 23.8 fantasy points per game to small forwards but we can’t overlook the opportunities he’ll have for the price. As long as he’s starting then he’s firmly in play. Like Harden, Durant didn’t have terrific success in this matchup during the regular season either with a 41 and 44 fantasy point performance. He did, however, have a solid series against the Pelicans with three of the five games scoring over 50 fantasy points and one of them over 60 fantasy points. On the two-game slate, if I’m ranking these guys, it’s James, Harden, and then Durant which is the same order as their pricing. James commands the most usage, followed by Harden and then Durant has the most players he needs to share opportunities with. All of these guys as we know have a similar ceiling though so in tournaments you’re probably better off sticking with the player you think will be the lowest owned and hoping he can put you close to what the other studs produce. It’s probably worth noting that as I type this James is getting owned by the Celtics and it’s a real possibility he doesn’t score over 20 points. This may honestly change how we view the King for these rest of these slates. As far as the remaining available forwards, P.J. Tucker and Trevor Ariza are generally lower usage players who are on the court more for defense than offense which makes them tough sells for fantasy purposes. But, since we are talking one or two game slates here they are definitely value options. Tucker had four of the five games against the Jazz with 24 fantasy points or more and two of them with over 30 fantasy points. Ariza wasn’t nearly as good as Tucker but he still played at least 25 minutes in every game. I don’t like either of these guys as much as I like Iguodala but they are likely to be lower owned. Lastly, at small forward, you could take a shot on Gerald Green. He hasn’t been getting much for minutes and with none of these games likely to be a blowout I doubt he gets enough in this series either. There’s always a chance he gets hot off the bench and they continue to roll with him but trying to predict when that might happen will be impossible. For power forwards, Luc Mbah a Moute played over 20 minutes in three of the five games against Utah after missing the entire Timberwolves series with a shoulder injury. He didn’t do much with his playing time with just 15 or less fantasy points in each game. He’ll be close to minimum salary and I suppose you could take a shot on a showdown slate as a value option since 20 minutes is solid but it’s obviously a very risky move. You’re better off taking a look at Kevon Looney, who saw over 20 minutes in every game against the Pelicans and had 19, 22, 14, 14, and 18 fantasy points in those contests. He’s another value option, with a stronger floor than Moute, for these showdown slates. I have no interest in Jordan Bell. He’s just not getting the playing time right now. I think he’s got a bright future and he’ll be a regular on our DFS radars at some point but it’s not going to be in this series.

Studs: Kevin Durant

Values: Andre Iguodala, Trevor Ariza, P.J. Tucker, Kevon Looney

Fades: Gerald Green, Luc Mbah a Moute, Jordan Bell

Centers:

There are really only two guys to talk about in this section and one of them isn’t even center eligible on FanDuel. The first is Clint Capela, who has been nothing short of outstanding so far in the postseason. He’s averaging a double-double with 14.4 points and 12.2 rebounds to go along with 2.8 blocks per game. He leads the postseason with 28 blocks so far. He draws a difficult matchup with one of the best defenders in the league in Draymond Green but he’s coming off of an equally difficult matchup against Rudy Gobert and the Utah Jazz. In that series, Capela still managed to put up at least 38 fantasy points in four of five games. He’s arguably the best center remaining of these four teams. On the other side, Draymond Green should play the majority of his minutes at center and matchup with Capela. Green had a monster series against the Pelicans with only one game below 40 fantasy points (39) and two games over 60 fantasy points. He had some big games in the regular season against the Rockets as well with 43, 58, and 43 fantasy points in their three meetings. His price has skyrocketed with the production he’s showing but that shouldn’t cause you to back away. He’s in strong consideration on these one and two-game slates. As for the rest of the available centers they are hands off for me. Nene and Pachulia just won’t get enough minutes for them to be even worth a GPP flyer. Don’t take the risk.

Studs: Clint Capela, Draymond Green

Values: N/A

Fades: Nene Hilario, Zaza Pachulia, JaVale McGee

Like what you read? Give us a thumbs up below!