In a traditional FanDuel NBA lineup, you have a $60,000 salary cap to roster nine players. The salary cap is the same in the single-game setup, but the lineup requirements are different.
You select five players of any position. One of your players will be your MVP, whose FanDuel points are multiplied by two. You also choose a STAR player (whose production is multiplied by 1.5) and a PRO (multiplied by 1.2). Two UTIL players round out the roster, and they don't receive a multiplier for their production.
This makes the five players you select essential in more than one way; you need to focus on slotting in the best plays in the multiplier slots rather than just nailing the best overall plays of the game.
Read about single-game NBA DFS strategy on how to attack a single-game slate in NBA DFS.
Celtics-Heat Overview
| Away | Home | Game Total | Away Total | Home Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Miami | Boston | 203.0 | 97.75 | 105.25 |
Player Breakdowns
The starters will deserve a lot of attention for a Game 7. We haven't had many Game 7s in the 2023 playoffs, but we have seen the Boston Celtics in one of them so far.
Their starters -- Marcus Smart, Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, Al Horford, and Robert Williams -- played 39.2, 40.5, 41.7, 33.9, and 30.2 minutes, respectively, in the semifinals against the Philadelphia 76ers. The only other Celtic with more than 13 minutes was Malcolm Brogdon (28.7), who is questionable for tonight's game after missing Game 6.
The Celtics have started Smart, Brown, Tatum, Horford, and Derrick White for the past four games with Robert Williams moving to the bench.
numberFire is projecting huge minutes for Tatum (41.9) and Brown (38.6), which is no surprise.
For the Miami Heat, their starting lineup has been shifting around a bit due to injury or coaching decisions. Their Game 6 starting lineup was Gabe Vincent, Max Strus, Caleb Martin, Jimmy Butler, and Bam Adebayo.
Butler played 46.7 minutes, and Adebayo played 45.7 with Vincent at 41.3 and Martin at 40.6. Strus was at 25.3 with Duncan Robinson (20.1) and Kyle Lowry (18.1) seeing the only other relevant minutes.
The point here is that we're not going to get a ton of value from the benches on either side, and that means we need to get strict with our lineup pool.
The perfect lineup for Game 6 was made up of four starters. The MVP was Tatum ($17,500), the STAR was Martin ($10,000), the PRO was Brown ($13,500), and the two utility players were White ($11,000) and Williams ($7,500).
Slate Simulations
Based on 10,000 slate simulations, here is how likely players are to be the slate leader or in the top five in FanDuel points and value (i.e. FanDuel points per $1,000).
| Player | FanDuel Salary | Team | FD Proj | Top FDP % | Top-5 FDP % | Top Value % | Top-5 Value % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jimmy Butler | $16,500 | MIA | 51.8 | 40.5% | 94.8% | 13.0% | 60.7% |
| Jayson Tatum | $17,500 | BOS | 51.4 | 43.1% | 95.4% | 9.3% | 56.1% |
| Bam Adebayo | $14,000 | MIA | 38.7 | 7.3% | 78.3% | 9.6% | 47.8% |
| Jaylen Brown | $13,500 | BOS | 37.4 | 6.3% | 69.7% | 7.6% | 42.0% |
| Marcus Smart | $11,000 | BOS | 29.2 | 1.6% | 40.8% | 8.5% | 38.3% |
| Caleb Martin | $10,500 | MIA | 28.3 | 0.3% | 30.9% | 5.7% | 36.9% |
| Derrick White | $12,000 | BOS | 27.0 | 0.2% | 30.8% | 1.7% | 19.3% |
| Gabe Vincent | $9,000 | MIA | 24.9 | 0.5% | 19.3% | 9.8% | 38.8% |
| Al Horford | $10,000 | BOS | 24.4 | 0.2% | 17.9% | 4.0% | 26.5% |
| Kyle Lowry | $8,500 | MIA | 21.7 | 0.0% | 8.7% | 5.5% | 26.7% |
| Malcolm Brogdon | $7,000 | BOS | 18.7 | 0.0% | 5.1% | 11.4% | 36.2% |
| Max Strus | $7,500 | MIA | 17.4 | 0.0% | 5.1% | 6.3% | 26.0% |
| Grant Williams | $7,000 | BOS | 14.6 | 0.0% | 2.1% | 4.9% | 24.7% |
| Duncan Robinson | $7,500 | MIA | 12.0 | 0.0% | 1.0% | 1.3% | 9.5% |
| Cody Zeller | $6,000 | MIA | 7.9 | 0.0% | 0.1% | 1.4% | 9.0% |
| Haywood Highsmith | $6,500 | MIA | 2.8 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.8% |
| Kevin Love | $6,500 | MIA | 0.6 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.7% |