NBA - 803 Chicago Bulls @ 804 Los Angeles Lakers
Projected Line: 188 points
***DOUBLE DIME PLAY***
Kobe Bryant has been a monster lately and if the Lakers beat Chicago today, they will remove Utah from the #8 seed in the Western Conference standings. However, the LA team has been forced to make some huge comebacks to barely beat bad teams like the Hornets and the Raptors. The main reason for that has been their poor defense. The Lakers had no chance against the Thunder's explosiveness, then on a back to back spot at New Orleans, they allowed 93 points in just 3 quarters and even on their last game at home against the dysfunctional Raptors, they allowed Toronto to score 89 points in the first three quarters of the game! It's not hard to understand why the Lakers have been so poor on defense. They simply lack the proper seed on the wings to be effective on defense. On their game against the Thunder, Russell Westbrook just crushed them with 15-29 FG, 37 points, 10 rebounds and 5 assists in just 36 minutes of action. Then, the tired Lakers couldn't stop Eric Gordon and Greivis Vasquez early on. In fact, they only beat the Hornets due to a huge choke from New Orleans down the stretch. Finally, on their last game against the Raptors, Toronto's backcourt looked like an amazing unit out there, with Kyle Lowry shooting 5-8 FG, DeMar DeRozan 12-18 FG, John Lucas 5-7 FG and even Alan Anderson shot 6-14 FG! Toronto's guards shot a combined of 28-47 FG for almost 60% FG!
The good news for the Lakers is that they won't be facing a team today that has explosive guards. Chicago simply doesn't have any kind of explosiveness on their backcourt. Until Derrick Rose is back on the lineup, the Bulls will be forced to play with Nate Robinson, Marco Belinelli, Jimmy Butler and Luol Deng. That's why the Bulls are just #29 in the league on transition plays with just 1.05 PPP. Chicago's strength relies on their frontcourt, but they are really missing Taj Gibson and their frontcourt game is also quite inconsistent on offense as well right now. Coach Thibodeau is riding their starters with big minutes and so, it's normal that the Bulls aren't able to sustain any kind of offensive efficiency throughout the whole game. For example, on their last game against Utah, they scored 58 points in the first half, just to score 34 points in the second half!
On the other hand, it won't be easy for the Lakers's offense to have a good outcome tonight, as this Bulls's defense is still an elite unit! Joakim Noah will hung around with Dwight Howard 1*1, so the Bulls won't need to overhelp down low, something that will cause problems to the Lakers's backcourt. Chicago is also a great team in closing out on the shooters (#2 in spot up defense and #5 on 3pts defense with 34.0% allowed), so I don't expect the Lakers to have a great outside shooting game tonight. The Bulls will definitely attempt to slow down the pace and put the Lakers on a half court battle, where they have better chances due to the fact that their defense is way better than the Lakers's defense. Therefore, I see the current totals line to be set way too high right now and so, I'll be taking the Under in here on a Double Dime Play!
Pick: 4 units (Double Dime Play) on 803/804 Under 195 @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
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