NBA Betting – San Antonio Spurs at Chicago Bulls
San Antonio Spurs (-6, 198.5 o/u) at Chicago Bulls
Riding a four-game win streak, the San Antonio Spurs will visit the United Center tonight to meet the Chicago Bulls (8:00 p.m. Eastern).
The Bulls (27-16) are going through a rough patch, having lost six of their last eight, including a 108-94 loss to division-rival Cleveland on Monday.
“Everybody has to be on the same page,” point guard Derrick Rose said. “Until then, we’re going to continue to get our ass kicked.”
Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau is anxious to see his team take control of its own fortunes.
“We got to decide when enough’s enough,” Thibodeau said. “The way we’re playing is not acceptable, so we have to change it.”
Since the calendar turned to 2015, the Chicago defense has had serious problems; it’s gone from fifth-best in field goal percentage to fifth-worst.
An injury to Joakim Noah, last year’s Defensive Player of the Year, has not made things easier for the struggling squad. Noah has missed Chicago’s last three with an ankle sprain, and the Bulls have given up at least 103 points in each game.
The Spurs recently had their own injury struggles, with both Tony Parker and Kawhi Leonard missing large chunks of time. The defending champs appeared to be on the ropes for a while, falling perilously close to .500. But, with both Parker and Leonard back in the lineup, the Spurs are back on their game, winning eight of their last ten.
Leonard, in particular, came up huge in San Antonio’s win over Denver on Tuesday, scoring 17 points and adding a whopping 15 rebounds. Leonard led the Spurs to a 109-99 victory, covering the 7.5-point spread.
The Spurs are big six-point road favorites against the Bulls (who are just 12-10 at home). While San Antonio is 9-3 SU in its last 12 on the road against Chicago, and the Bulls have been mediocre at the United Center this year, the Bulls +6 is still the better play.
(Photo credit: Keith Allison from Owings Mills, USA (Derrick Rose) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons. Photo has been cropped.)
Zack is a tour guide whose favorite sports are football, baseball, and golf. He enjoys giving obnoxious commentary during games and hopes to some day write a book about sports. His favorite underdog victory was the Diamondbacks beating the Yankees in game 7 of the World Series.
