NBA - 505 Chicago Bulls @ 506 Los Angeles Lakers
Projected line: Chicago by 8 points
With this release of my Double Dime Play on Chicago against the Lakers, this means I'm not high on the Lakers for this season as everyone else, but this play isn't to trash them and say that they will suck badly this season, no! It's much more the case of a team who will be playing against the wrong opponent at the wrong time!
I'll start the analysis to this game stating a point where Miami will also have this very same edge vs Dallas: physical advantage! Like I've said, I've watched almost all games of the preseason and we can add Chicago just along with Miami as the two teams with the current best conditioning teams! Tom Thibodeau is a hard nosed coach who demands high effort in every game no matter what and already in the last preseason game, the Bulls starters played at least 28 minutes each. With their deep roster, the "motor" of Chicago is just unbelievable right now and the Lakers will simply ran out of gas with them! For the Lakers, Metta World Peace showed up fat for the training camp, Derek Fisher was involved in 1500 meetings during the lockout and even Kobe Bryant injured his wrist in a preseason game. The Lakers don't have depth on their roster and so, I really think the Bulls will have a monumental physical edge in this matchup.
Mike Brown's Cleveland teams were good defensive teams and I believe that he will do a good job in putting the Lakers on the top of the defensive ranks. His main philosophy is to pack the lane and force the opponents to shoot from the perimeter. In Cleveland he had the luxury of having Lebron James - a guy that could easily rotate from the inside-out without losing his man. The problem is when you have one player that can't stop his opponent especially in penetrations and this will forced your teammates to rotate to help you and the defensive principle gets immediately all messed up. In the case you haven't still noticed, I'm taking about the impossibility of both Derek Fisher and Steve Blake in stopping Derrick Rose. Mike Brown may indeed opt in put Bryant guarding Rose, but then Bryant's legs won't handle that for a long time. Bottom line is that this is a big matchup edge for Chicago: Rose against everyone else in the Lakers roster!
I can't also ignore the fact that Andrew Bynum is suspended for this game and so, the Lakers will have as frontcourt players available for this game Pau Gasol, Josh McRoberts, Troy Smith and Devin Ebanks! It really sucks that Bynum won't play this contest because in the two preseason games against the Clippers, he was clearly the team's best player and he seems to be in really good shape right now (5-11 FG 15 pts, 12 reb and 11-15FG 26pts and 11 reb). Bottom line is that the available frontcourt is just too thin to battle for the boards against a team like the Bulls. Last season Andrew Bynum did not play both games against the Bulls, but Odom started them and played 35min in each game and still the Lakers were outrebounded in both games, so I don't expect a different scenario for this game. Thibodeau can easily put Deng on Bryant and Noah on Gasol and the Bulls will be fine defensively.
It's not usual for the Lakers to be home underdogs, but this is a special spot where they will simply face a better team and especially in a completely unfavourable spot for them. Kobe Bryant says he will play on Sunday, but don't forget that he is dealing with a wrist injury on his shooting hand and that we are talking about a painful injury! Nevertheless, with or without Bryant, I don't think the Lakers will manage to compete with the Bulls for the full 48 minutes of the game and that's why I'm taking the Bulls in here as my Double Dime Play!
Pick: 4 units (Double Dime Play) on 505 Chicago Bulls (-3) @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
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