FanDuel Single-Game Daily Fantasy Basketball Helper: Heat at Celtics (Game 5)

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 this piece by Brandon Gdula for some excellent in-depth analysis on how to attack a single-game slate in NBA DFS.

Heat-Celtics Overview

We've got a new face on today's injury report.

Gabe Vincent (ankle) is going to sit Game 5 after heading to the locker room at one point on Tuesday. That'll free up minutes for a Heat backcourt that's already quite thin without Tyler Herro (hand) and Victor Oladipo (knee).

The Celtics are at full strength as they face elimination again.

Player Breakdowns

At The Top

An electric second half from Jayson Tatum ($17,500) finally dethroned Jimmy Butler ($17,000) as the optimal MVP for a game in this series.

As their season wanes, Boston is leaning further into Tatum. He held a 30.4% usage rate in Game 4 with no other Celtic above 24.0%. Expect him to stay aggressive at home, and the C's are the surprise eight-point favorite in this one.

However, Butler's case might heighten on the road in this spot. Role players typically are more comfortable at home, which might explain why Butler's 31.4% usage rate in Boston dropped to 30.5% in Miami. He's still unquestionably their top dog, and I'll go out on a limb and say he'll be plenty aggressive, as well. As this series gets prolonged, the impossible becomes more and more probable.

Bam Adebayo ($15,000) was the largest disappointment in Game 4 with just 15 FanDuel points at his lofty salary. As mentioned in Tuesday's helper, he's really more of a STAR or PRO candidate when he's only eclipsed Butler's FanDuel-point total in one game this postseason. His popularity should be suppressed overall after back-to-back stinkers, though.

Finally, I'm just not sure it's meant to be as the MVP for Jaylen Brown ($13,500) at any point. As mentioned, Brown's overall usage advantage over Tatum was erased and decimated in Game 4. He's also just 3-for-25 (12.0%) from deep in the series, so the odds that Butler and Tatum collapse with substantial production from him are nearly zero at this stage.

In The Middle

Anecdotally, a fired-up crowd facing elimination plays right into the hands of a fiery guy like Marcus Smart ($12,000).

Analytically, there are signs of life, too. Three second-half triples helped Smart erase his first-half goose egg in the points column, and he still logged 35 minutes in a blowout despite the struggles. Smart has yet to eclipse 40 FanDuel points in this series despite doing so against both Philadelphia and Atlanta, so that eruption game is coming if Boston stays alive. Maybe he's the reason they do.

Al Horford ($11,000) was one of many Celtics off the shooting schneid in Game 4, bombing in four threes himself. However, his minutes (25) were reduced with Grant Williams ($8,500) and Robert Williams ($7,000) both playing at least 20 effective minutes off the bench. He's likely over-salaried but still carries multiplier upside averaging 3.52 stocks per 36 minutes in the playoffs.

As overwhelming chalk on Tuesday, Derrick White ($10,000) is appropriately salaried here. He's benefitted greatly from Malcolm Brogdon ($7,500) shooting just 35.3% in the series. The C's are phasing Brogdon out, which opened 27 minutes for White. Averaging 29.0 FanDuel points per 36 in the playoffs, that's all he needed at the $7,000 figure, but his heightened salary should give us pause here.

Finally, Caleb Martin ($9,500) is still hanging around in this tier, but fading him was one of my key angles (to no success) in Game 4. His 76.6% eFG simply won't last forever when he was at 54.0% in the regular season.

At The Bottom

We'll have to get more creative down here than Tuesday.

Grant Williams is still the obvious starting point. He's eclipsed 25 minutes in three straight and led Boston's bigs in minutes (29) during Tuesday's affair. They're having quite a bit of success with small ball, so I'd expect his versatile role to stick, and his low postseason usage rate (10.6%) leads to a reliable projection of his work when he's on the court.

With Vincent out, the door is open for additional production or minutes from Kyle Lowry ($9,000) and Max Strus ($7,500). Shooting just 34.8% from three in this series, Strus is one of the Heat guys that you could buy low on from a shooting perspective. As the stakes raise, I also can't imagine Miami wouldn't lean heavier on their veteran, Lowry, than the sub-30-minute role he's held all series.

Duncan Robinson ($6,500) is also likely to pick up minutes in Vincent's stead, too. After that, you'd be taking darts at Haywood Highsmith ($6,000) or others that have recorded DNPs -- or close to -- for several games.

Both Boston guys with decent minutes could work here, too. It's not set in stone Malcolm Brogdon is behind Smart and White permanently; he did close both games in Boston to start the series. His cold shot would just need to improve. Robert Williams is also a guy that can make 21 minutes count when he's averaged 2.15 blocks per 36 minutes in the playoffs.

These teams were very late to pull starters despite a wide margin in the fourth on Tuesday, so I'm not even sure how plausible a blowout angle would be unless it's by at least 20 points entering the fourth.