NBA Premium Play 01/10: Chicago Bulls @ Minnesota Timberwolves

NBA - 513 Chicago Bulls @514 Minnesota Timberwolves

Projected line: 182 points | Chicago by 10 points
Minnesota will play today their back to back to back at home after the first two games being on the road. The Wolves are clearly looking dead tired right now. Even though they had a blowout win at Washington last Sunday, head coach Rick Adelman didn't rest their players and Love played 41 minutes, Rubio 30 minutes, Williams 31 minutes and Ellington 34 minutes. What happened yesterday at Toronto was that Minnesota basically had no legs. If it wasn't for the foul troubles of Toronto that originated 33 FT for Minnesota and the Wolves would have been heavily blownout on that game. Note that Minnesota shot just 33,8% FG, but most importantly, they shot 12-30 FG at the rim and 3-12 FG from 3-9 feet! Basically, Minnesota couldn't score near the basket! Love shot 0-6 FG at the rim, but still played 36 minutes!

For tonight, Minnesota couldn't be facing an worse opponent than Chicago. The Bulls are coming from a normal win at home against Detroit, where they had a lockdown on defense and their opportunistic offense was enough to blowout Detroit, as predicted on my play. Head coach Tom Thibodeau was able to rotate the team without problems during the game. Matchup wise, Minnesota's offense will be in huge problems, even if this wasn't a terrible physical spot for them. Kevin Love will have a physical battle with the Bulls terrific physical frontline and this will be highly problematic for him. Even though that he has been excellent in the perimeter, his lack of fresh legs for tonight will be a problem. Minnesota needs to score easy points near the basket, as they are highly inconsistent in the perimeter and when they can't do it, they heavily struggled, like it happened in Toronto last night. The bright spot of Minnesota's offense are the P&R Ball Handler plays with Ricky Rubio (#2 with 0.98 PPP), but with Rubio having a tough matchup against Rose, he will have to use a lot of energy and this will also be a problem for Minnesota, we are talking about a rookie playing 3 days in a row, which is a tremendous physical task for a young player like him.

On the other side, Chicago's offense has been very opportunistic and they are crushing their opponents when they don't defend in transition or in half court games, where they use their offensive rebounding and Derrick Rose to score points. Minnesota won't have the legs to handle the motor of Chicago and therefore, I expect an easy win for the Bulls in here and that's why I'll take Chicago tonight. With Minnesota struggling physically and Chicago being more than able to have a defensive lockdown against the Wolves, I came up with a projection of 182 points, good enough for me to take the under in here as well.

Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 513/514 Under 186 @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 513 Chicago Bulls (-6,5) @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker