Chicago Bulls at New Jersey Nets
Written by Steve Janus - Google +
The New Jersey Nets will try and snap a five game losing streak when they host the Chicago Bulls tonight. These two teams faced off last Friday at the United Center, with the Bulls coming away with a 90-81 win. Chicago won 111-91 at home against the Raptors last night, and have now won five straight overall. The Nets haven’t had much luck lately, as their nine point loss to Chicago is their closest game during their current five game losing streak. The Bulls however have lost two straight at New Jersey, and are just 2-18 in their last 20 trips. Taking a look at the spreads for tonight’s game, the oddsmakers have the Bulls favored by 5-points over the Nets.
With the win last night, the Bulls have won 14 of their last 16 overall, and a big reason for Chicago’s success is they are playing a pretty weak stretch of their schedule, as they have faced just three teams with a winning record over the last 16 games. Still you have to give the Bulls credit, as they are getting the job done.
In the Bulls easy win over the Raptors last night, Loul Deng had a game-high 24 points, and Deng has really picked up his scoring lately, averaging 20 points over his last five games. If Chicago can get 20 a game from Deng with the way Derrick Rose and Carlos Boozer are playing, the Bulls are going to be a tough matchup for anyone in the Eastern Conference.
With the easy win last night, the Bulls were able to rest a lot of their starters, which will make playing on back-to-back nights a lot easier for Chicago.
As for the Nets they just aren’t playing good basketball right now. New Jersey is really struggling offensively lately, and this team just isn’t good enough defensively to win games by not playing extremely well on the offensive end.
Brook Lopez hit 11-11 from the free throw line on his way to 19 points against Chicago, but New Jersey shot just 39% for the game, and if it wasn’t for the Bulls shooting just 39.5% this game would have been even more of a blowout.
I think there is no question that you have to take the Bulls at -5 in this one. Chicago is by far the better team, and more times than not when these two teams face off regardless of where the game is, the Bulls are going to win by six or more.
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