NBA - 707 Minnesota Timberwolves @ 708 Chicago Bulls
Projected Line: 180 points
Minnesota is coming from a home win last night against Indiana, where they defended well the perimeter, with Indiana shooting 8-21 FG from 16-23 feet and 5-18 3pts, while shooting 3-15 FG on spot up plays! On the other side, Minnesota ended the game shooting 50% FG and a huge success on cuts with 19-25 FG at the rim, while having an excellent distribution of the shots. This great game of the Wolves at the rim was unexpected, as they were just #26 at the rim prior to that game with 58.4% FG! They also struggle from the outside with just 34% FG from 16-23 feet, but they are compensating that with a good free throw rate (#5 with 33.0 FT/rate) and good offensive rebound numbers (#4 with 33.54 Offensive rebound rate). However, they don't have a good spot for tonight, as they will be shorthanded without Kevin Love, J.J. Barea and most likely Brandon Roy. Therefore, these shooting problems will only get bigger tonight with their tired legs, after a tight game last night.
They will face Chicago, who has been defending well as usual. They are in the top 15 in offensive rebound% and FT allowed%, so Minnesota will struggle in creating offense tonight. The Wolves have also been a good pick and roll team by being #9 on ball handler and #2 on roll man, but Chicago's defense is #4 in allowing ball handler and #6 in allowing production from pick and roll roll man plays!
It was clear on their loss against Oklahoma City that the Bulls need Derrick Rose to produce some kind of offense in crunch time. Still, the team can pass the ball quite well and they have a good assist rate. Their problem resides on their perimeter shooting, as it's clear that Chicago is doing their job down low with 72.3% FG at the rim! At the same time, they are quite aggressive by being #3 in the team in free throws with 35.0 FT/rate%! Their problem for tonight is that Minnesota's defense is stellar on these two areas by allowing just 54.9% FG at the rim and by being on the top 10 in terms of allowing free throws to their opponents.
These two teams faced each other twice during the preseason and both games ended up being low scoring games, with their starters playing heavy minutes in both games. The matchup is the same for tonight and so, I'll be taking the Under in here.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 707/708 Under 184 @ -110 / 1.91 on 5Dimes
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