Projected line: Chicago by 12 points
Chicago is coming from a very intense game yesterday in Miami, in a clear playoff game atmosphere. Miami took advantage of the absence of Deng and Lebron with his superior sized punished Chicago down low with 6-7 FG at the rim! The problems with Miami's ball movement were visible with just 19 assists and even though Wade was still far from his best, the Heat were very aggressive, with 30-40 FG! The boards fight was very close 50/50 and even though Chicago was always down in the score, they never gave up. Rose completely abused in the penetrations until Miami put Lebron to guard him with 6min to go! Rip Hamilton had a good defensive game, but struggled on offense and he stated after the game that he basically played on one leg the whole game! The Bulls bench didn't bring anything special and tonight Chicago has a tough b2b game spot, with their starters having played a lot yesterday: Rose 45min, Brewer 42min, Noah 33min and Rip 36min! However, this is a very strong bounce back spot for the Bulls!
Washington is 2-1 with their new head coach, but both wins were against the Bobcats! Their playing style on offense is very simple: push the tempo! On their last three games, they scored 26+29+20 fast break points, but the problem was their high number of turnovers: 23+14+14! As they are so focused on starting the possession in transition, they are forgetting of boxing out and they have allowed 13+19+14 offensive rebounds on their last 3 games! They are finally focused in attacking the rim and not shooting from the outside: 10+8+11 3pts attempts vs 36+27+38 FG attempts at the rim! In their two wins over Charlotte, they did well with 23-36 FG 64% and 25-38 FG 66% at the rim, but the problem is that those games were against the Bobcats, who are a terrible interior defensive team! Vesely is now a starter in the Wizards: “We want to run and he can run,” Wittman said of Vesely. “He fits right in with what we want do from pace standpoint. From basketball IQ standpoint he is very good. He knows situations and extra passes and reading defenses.”
With this new playing style, Washington will have a lot of problems against Chicago, as the Bulls are the best defensive team at the rim and they are also the best rebounding team in the league! They have 4 frontcourt players (Noah+Boozer+Gibson+Asik), who can and will dominate the glass tonight against the Wizards. Even the Bulls not allowing Washington to score easy points at the rim, the only thing the Wizards will have left in their transition game and Chicago is also a top team (#7) on fast break defense, with just 11.5 fast break points per game allowed! Chicago has the necessary skills to make this game an easy blowout win for them and with their bounce back mindset, I have little doubts they will do exactly that and so, I'll take Chicago tonight.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 701 Chicago Bulls (-9) @ -110 / 1.91 on 5Dimes
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