NBA - 823 Chicago Bulls @ 824 Utah Jazz
Projected Line: pk line
According to my numbers, the two fastest teams in the league this season are Houston (#1) and Denver (#2). I'm certain that it isn't just a coincidence that the two biggest losses of the Coach Thibodeau era in Chicago have been this season and against these two teams. On Christmas Day, Chicago lost at home against Houston by 97-120 and yesterday, they got crushed at Denver by 96-128! I have graded Denver's offensive performance yesterday as the best offensive performance of the season by any team so far with an offensive rate of 147.9! It's super weird that it came against a good defensive team like Chicago, however, just like I've pointed in the writeup, I referred the two main areas where Chicago's defense would struggle: transition defense and the PG position matchup with Nate Robinson having to guard Ty Lawson. The truth is that Denver ended the game with 23 fast break points, for an incredible 14-17 FG 1.59 PPP in transitions, while making a ridiculous 29 FG shots between layups and dunks! Ty Lawson also took advantage of the nice matchup he had to end the game with 12 assists in just 31 minutes of action.
The Bulls were able to hang around with the Nuggets during the first half because they were hitting their outside shots: 7-11 3pts in the first half! By hitting those outside shots, the Bulls were preventing the Nuggets to go out in transition, but they just couldn't stop them down low. When the second half started, Chicago started to miss those shots that they had made in the first half and this was pretty much the end for the Bulls. The Nuggets simply demolished them in the third quarter, also with the help of a red hot second unit led by Wilson Chandler, who ended the game with 8-9 FG, 5-5 3pts and 24 points!
Chicago really had no chances yesterday, while Utah will once again host a team that is coming from a game at Denver the night before, so they have a great edge in terms of spot. However, there are a lot of differences between the Jazz's game against Milwaukee and tonight's game. First of all, Chicago's game at Denver wasn't played in the frenetic pace that Milwaukee's game at Denver was. In fact, Denver vs Milwaukee had a game pace of 104.70, while last night's game had a pace of just 89.41! Then, Milwaukee was super competitive the whole game and so, their starters played heavy minutes, especially Monta Ellis and Brandon Jennings, so they were on a bad spot to perform decently in the following day. Chicago got crushed last night, the game was more than over after the third quarter, so Coach Thibodeau decided to rest his starters.
Finally, Larry Sanders didn't play at Utah and Samuel Dalembert had to start the game and play big minutes, after a monster game the night before, and so he couldn't keep the same effort in both ends of the floor that he had shown the night before. Coach Boylan was even forced to use Drew Gooden! The result of this was Utah's frontcourt dominating the game: Al Jefferson 8-12 FG. Paul Millsap 8-15 FG and even Enes Kanter 7-9 FG! At the same time, Utah grabbed almost 60% of the rebounds! This won't surely happen today against Chicago, as the Bulls's great frontcourt of Joakim Noah and Carlos Boozer are probable for tonight.
Utah's backcourt keeps not having their best backcourt player available in Gordon Hayward, so they need to have a clear edge down low in order to win their games and I don't think that it will happen tonight at all against Chicago's good frontcourt. Under Coach Thibodeau's leadership, Chicago is a monster in playing in bad spots and unlike what happened last night at Denver, tonight's game offers a nice matchup to Chicago and so, I believe the Bulls are going to be super competitive tonight. I'm taking Chicago tonight.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 823 Chicago Bulls (+4) @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
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