NBA DFS Picks and Fantasy Basketball Building Blocks for Today, Monday | 3/28/22

Monday, March 28, the NBA is heading into the home stretch of the regular season with a nine-game main slate beginning at 7 p.m. ET on Yahoo, DraftKings and FanDuel. Let’s look at the player pool and discuss the top NBA DFS picks today for DraftKings, FanDuel and Yahoo lineups. As always, you can head over to the Awesemo NBA DFS & Fantasy Basketball home page for all the fantasy basketball content you need for any given slate.

NBA DFS Picks: Fantasy Basketball Building Blocks Today | Monday, March 28

Yahoo Play of the Day — Jimmy Butler: Miami Heat vs. Sacramento Kings

  • Awesemo’s Preliminary Point Projections: Yahoo and FanDuel: 40.43 | DraftKings: 39.81
  • Awesemo’s Preliminary Rostered Projections: Yahoo 34.2% | FanDuel 23.6% | DraftKings 14.9%
  • DFS Salary: Yahoo $33 | FanDuel $8,000 | DraftKings $8,300

Miami is on a four-game skid, which has allowed the surging Celtics to tie them for the best record in the Eastern Conference after rattling off six straight wins. The cynical would say that Jimmy Butler has managed to wear out his welcome on a fourth team, the savvy DFS gamer will be taking advantage of the discounted salary on Yahoo in this delectable matchup. The Heat were so pitiful on Saturday against Brooklyn that their starters were benched en masse midway through the third quarter for the remainder of the game.

Butler is only 72 hours removed from a 50-fantasy-point performance, so there is no reason to avoid him tonight. Sacramento is just playing out the string on its season and over its last 10 games it has allowed 116.7 points per 100 possessions. Miami is projected to tally 115 points tonight, which is half-a-dozen more than its average output.

Dejounte Murray: San Antonio Spurs at Houston Rockets

  • Awesemo’s Preliminary Point Projections: Yahoo and FanDuel: 52.49 | DraftKings: 54.16
  • Awesemo’s Preliminary Rostered Projections: Yahoo 17.0% | FanDuel 34.5% | DraftKings 15.0%
  • DFS Salary: Yahoo $50 | FanDuel $10,000 | DraftKings $11,000

Tonight San Antonio is in Houston where it is a 6.5-point favorite against the woeful Rockets. The Houston front office must be quietly seething as the team won two straight in Portland this weekend and now is tied with Orlando and Detroit for the worst record in the league. Oklahoma City is only one game ahead of the terrible trio. Dejounte Murray has led the Spurs to three consecutive victories and now his squad is just one game behind the Lakers for the final slot in the Play-In Tournament. Murray is posting career highs across the board and is now averaging a tick shy of 50 fantasy points per appearance. Across his last 11 games, he is averaging 35.4 minutes, 19.6 field goal attempts, 24.3 points, 8.5 rebounds, 8.9 assists, 2.3 steals and 0.3 blocks. The cherry on top of this breakout season is 13 triple-doubles, which are behind only the 18 of Nikola Jokic.

Look to Devin Vassell in this matchup against the Rockets in the NBA player prop market. Currently, he has a 3.5 over/under on his rebound prop, and the Awesemo NBA player projections have him for 5.3, which gives him a 77% probability of surpassing the over. Vassell has at least four rebounds in 11 of his last 14 games.

Golden State Warriors at Memphis Grizzlies

This is a back-to-back for the Warriors, who lost in Washington last night 123-115 to the lowly Wizards. They have now lost five of their last six games and with Stephen Curry (foot) out for at least another week, it looks like they will be giving Klay Thompson, Otto Porter Jr. and Draymond Green the night off tonight as they have given up hope of improving their playoff lot. Golden State is still three games ahead of Utah, so even if Dallas manages to overtake the Warriors in the standings, they still have a strong possibility of hosting a first-round playoff series.

That means Jordan Poole, Andrew Wiggins, Jonathan Kuminga, Kevon Looney and Gary Payton II should be in line for big minutes tonight. Poole is a core play in all formats and he should be able to flirt with 40 fantasy points. Kuminga is truly a wild card, though at his rock-bottom salary across the various NBA DFS sites, he is tantalizing for tournaments.

Ja Morant (knee) is out once again and it looks like Brandon Clarke (hip) will be joining him on the sideline. Jaren Jackson Jr. (thigh) is a game-time decision, though if he starts he should see his typical 25 to 27 minutes. Tyus Jones is a fine play, though his salary has caught up with his new responsibilities. De’Anthony Melton has been seeing similar minutes and production as Jones and he is a direct pivot in large field contests. Desmond Bane, Dillon Brooks and Steven Adams are solid options, though their utility varies based on salary constraints and positional requirements.

Oklahoma City Thunder at Portland Trail Blazers

Ugh, this matchup has no redeeming qualities other than for fantasy purposes. Neither team wants to win as both are trying to acquire as many lottery chances as possible heading into the 2022 NBA Draft. It would make for a better product in a perfect world if somehow the “loss” was actually awarded to the team who scored the most points tonight. That would at least provide for some entertaining viewing as both teams would at least be trying to play competent basketball. Heck, here is an idea for Adam Silver: Take all the teams that are clearly tanking and every other day put them in pods of three. Each team plays the other for one half of basketball and the team with the best score gets more lottery chances. These sorts of round-robin jamboree type events would provide watchable games at the very least.

Back to reality, both teams will be sitting pretty much every player with even a modicum of NBA talent tonight. That means Aleksej Pokusevski, Theo Maledon, Tre Mann and Isaiah Roby are the Thunder core four. On the late-slate Aaron Wiggins, Lindy Waters III and Vit Krejci are in play.

Portland will counter with Drew Eubanks, Keon Johnson, Brandon Williams, CJ Elleby and Kris Dunn. Deep sleepers include Greg Brown (eye), Elijah Hughes and Ben McLemore.

Final Thoughts on NBA DFS picks for the Monday, March 28 Fantasy Basketball Slate

Tonight is a compressed slate the first eight games tipping off inside of a one-hour window. Then there is a two-hour gap until the lone West Coast nightcap. Fortunately, both teams have ruled out all of the notable players, so this hopefully will eliminate any last-minute surprises.

Eric "EMac" MacPherson won the 2007 Fantasy Baseball grand prize (trip for two to the MLB All-Star game) in the Roto format on ESPN. He won again in 2008, this time in the H2H format. As one of the early adopters of daily fantasy sports, EMac has been providing content for baseball and basketball as well as both professional and college football since 2012 for a variety of websites including DraftKings Playbook, FanVice, RotoWorld, Daily Fantasy Bootcamp, and RotoGrinders. He is well into his third decade of fantasy sports and has a wealth of knowledge and experience. Follow him on Twitter @EMacDFS or contact EMac by emailing [email protected].

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