The Knicks' defense will shut down the Wizards, plus other best bets for Tuesday

We have plenty of NBA action to help us fill the time until the Sweet 16 starts

By Tom Fornelli

Mar 23, 2021 at 4:09 pm ET • 5 min read

Hello, and Happy Tuesday! It is good to be back in your inbox after sitting out yesterday due to a severe internet shortage in my house. Thankfully I never lost my cable access, because if I hadn't been able to watch the tournament to distract me from an internetless existence, it would have been a painful day.

A quick thank you to Chris Bengel for not only stepping in on short notice, but for going 2-1 in his picks to ensure a profitable night for you. We do not have any more NCAA Tournament games to watch tonight, which could be a shock to the system after four straight days of action. It will be back on Saturday, and of course, we have plenty of NBA action to help us fill the time until then.

And we also have internet. Thankfully.

Speaking of the internet, do you know what one of my favorite things to do on it is? Read! I love to read things on the internet! Let's do that!

Now let's make some money!

All times Eastern, and all odds via William Hill Sportsbook

🔥 The Hot Ticket

Wizards at Knicks, 7:30 p.m. | TV: NBA League Pass
The Pick: Knicks -2.5 (-110): So it's been a few days since I've dipped my toes into the NBA water thanks to the NCAA Tournament, but it's safe to assume the sport hasn't changed in that time, right? Also, the Knicks are still actually pretty decent this season? It's true, don't be fooled by the Knicks fans in your life who will vastly overstate how good this team is -- somebody stranded in the desert won't remember that the water they found was warm -- it is legitimately decent. It's definitely better than the Wizards team it'll be facing on Tuesday night.

I like the Knicks in this spot as it is, and it's a Knicks team that's getting healthy. Immanuel Quickley and Mitchell Robinson are back. Both Elfrid Payton and Derrick Rose are questionable to play tonight, and I think at least one of them will be available. The Knicks live with their defense, which rates third in the league in efficiency. Beal and Russ will get theirs, but the Knicks will shut everybody else down, which will lead to the cover.

Key Trend: The Knicks are 9-3 ATS in their last 12 as favorites.

Here's what SportsLine is saying about the game: The Advanced Computer Model isn't only leaning heavily to one side of tonight's spread, it sees a lot of value betting the total as well.

💰 The Picks

🏀 NBA

Suns at Heat, 8 p.m. | TV: NBA League Pass
The Pick: Suns -1.5 (-110) -- The market continues to underrate this Phoenix team, and you will not hear me complaining about it. The Suns are 28-13 ATS this season, and their 68.3% cover rate is the best in the league. Utah is next at 64.3%. In other words, if you just bet the Suns every game, you'd be having a great time right now.

So let's join the party as the Suns are being undervalued on the road against the Heat. Miami's Goran Dragic is listed as questionable tonight, and even if he does play, I like the Suns up to -3. If he's out, I'd take them to -5, so to be able to get them at -1.5 right now is amazing.

Key Trend: The Suns are 28-13 ATS this season, including a mark of 5-0 as road favorites.

Lakers at Pelicans, 7:30 p.m. | TV: TNT
The Pick: Kentavious Caldwell-Pope Over 1.5 3pt FG (-115) -- As I've gone over in this letter during the season, New Orleans hemorrhages three-pointers. Pelicans opponents shoot from behind the arc 44.9% of the time, with only Charlotte and Miami giving them up more frequently. The difference is that Miami and Charlotte do a decent job defending them. The Pels don't. Right now, 38.9% of those threes against the Pelicans are going in, and that ranks 28th in the league (only Cleveland and San Antonio are worse).

Well, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope will see his minutes and usage increase now that LeBron James is out of the lineup, and threes have accounted for 55.2% of the shots he's taken this year. He's making them at a 40.3% rate. If he takes a lot of threes to begin with and will now be more involved in the offense, and he's facing a team that gives up a lot of threes...

Key Trend: Pope is averaging 2.0 made three-pointers per game this season.

🔒 SportsLine Pick of the Day: In this bracket, the team that wins more than 50 percent of computer simulations is picked to advance each round. Our optimal bracket beat almost 90% of CBS Sports Bracket Challenge players over the past two years.

💸 The DFS Rundown

If James Harden plays, I like him over Bradley Beal, so keep an eye on that as tip-off approaches.

Building Blocks

PG: Damian Lillard, Blazers
SG: Bradley Beal, Wizards
SF: Jimmy Butler, Heat
PF: Bam Adebayo, Heat
C: Nikola Jokic, Nuggets

Value Plays

PG: Jordan Poole, Warriors
SG: Furkan Korkmaz, Sixers
SF: Michael Porter, Nuggets
PF: Jeff Green, Nets
C: Dwight Howard, Sixers

Full lineup advice

Get winning NBA DFS picks from SportsLine pros Mike McClure and Jacob Gibbs. McClure has won almost $2 million in daily Fantasy, while Gibbs crushed the NBA last season, cashing around 65 percent of the time in cash games and nearly 45 percent of the time in tournaments. See their DraftKings advice and FanDuel lineups here.

🏀 Final Four Futures

The NCAA Tournament doesn't resume until Saturday, so each day until then I'm going to include one futures bet on the winner of each regional. Today we look for the best value to win the East.

The Pick: Florida State to win the East (+320) -- Truth be told, I don't think the Seminoles will get past Michigan in the Sweet 16. I think there's an overreaction to the Big Ten doing so poorly in the tournament that there's a lot of value on Michigan -3 at the moment. That said, Florida State is still a good team capable of giving anybody problems. With Michigan and Alabama at +175 to win the region, I don't see a lot of value on either. I do not think it's crazy to imagine the Noles getting past the Wolverines and then past either the Tide or UCLA. It's not the most likely scenario, but at +320, we only need it to happen roughly 24% of the time to be profitable.