{"id":11406,"date":"2010-12-10T02:26:09","date_gmt":"2010-12-10T07:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=11406"},"modified":"2010-12-10T02:26:09","modified_gmt":"2010-12-10T07:26:09","slug":"nba-sports-picks-los-angeles-lakers-at-chicago-bulls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/nba-sports-picks-los-angeles-lakers-at-chicago-bulls-11406\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Sports Picks: Los Angeles Lakers at Chicago Bulls"},"content":{"rendered":"

L.A. Lakers AT Chicago Bulls
\nDecember 10, 2010 at 8:05 PM EST
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 L.A. Lakers -2
\nCurrent Point Spread: L.A. Lakers -1.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 200
\nCurrent Total: 199
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 L.A. Lakers -110 \/ Chicago Bulls -110<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Kobe Bryant has been playing typical Kobe ball, and is averaging 26 ppg so far<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Both teams enter tonight’s game with three game winning streaks.\u00a0 The Lakers have beat three poor teams in Washington, the Clippers, and Sacramento, which helped them rebound from a four game losing streak.\u00a0 The Bulls last three wins came against the Thunder, Rockets, and Cavs.\u00a0 Chicago has been tough to beat at the United Center, having won 7 of their 9 home games this season.\u00a0 The Lakers are 6-4 on the road.<\/p>\n

The last meeting between the Bulls and Lakers came in November on the 23rd.\u00a0 The Lakers won by a score of 98 to 91, despite a strong showing by the Bulls’ Rose, as he went for 30.\u00a0 That night, the Lakers had a balanced attack with three players (Odom, Shannon Brown, and Kobe) scoring more than 20.\u00a0 Noah had a particularly strong showing against Pau Gasol, scoring more points (19 to 12) and getting more rebounds (13 to 11) than the All-NBA center.<\/p>\n

The Lakers have a +8.4 point differential, scoring a third best 107.8 points per game and giving up just under 100 points a game (99.4).\u00a0 The Bulls have a +1.1 point differential, scoring 100 per night and giving up 98.9.\u00a0 The Lakers have won 18 of the past 24 meetings between the teams, including four of their past five in Chicago.\u00a0 The total has gone UNDER in 6 of the last 7 games between the teams in Chicago.\u00a0 Also, the total has gone UNDER in 5 of Chicago’s past 6 games at home.\u00a0 The Bulls are also 2-4-1 ATS in their last 7 home games.\u00a0 The Bulls are 3-7 ATS vs the Lakers in the past ten games, too.<\/p>\n

Some of the key matchups in tonight’s game:
\n
\nPau Gasol vs Joakim Noah<\/strong><\/p>\n

Noah has emerged as one of the best defensive centers in the league.\u00a0 He blocks 1.4 shots a game and is second in the league in rebounding, ahead of Dwight Howard, and behind Kevin Love, with an average of 12.3 boards a game.\u00a0 Noah has enabled the Bulls to be the third best rebounding team in the league.\u00a0 Gasol happens to be sixth in rebounding himself, with an average of 11.6 and the Lakers are 2nd in the league in rebounding.\u00a0 So it goes without saying that this will be a great battle on the glass with Gasol and Noah leading the way for their respective teams.\u00a0 With Tom Thibodeau’s offense, Noah has been often playing a facilitating role and is averaging a career high 2.9 assists per game.\u00a0 Gasol plays a similar role in the triangle offense and manages 4.3 assists per game.
\n
\nKobe Bryant vs Keith Bogans & Ronnie Brewer<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is obviously not a key matchup due to Bogans or Brewer’s scoring prowess, but an obvious key to beating the Lakers is containing Kobe Bryant and both Bulls guards are very good defender.\u00a0 They collectively held Kobe in check last meeting, keeping him to 8 of 18 from the floor and 20 points for the game.\u00a0 That night Brewer played most of the minutes despite Bogans starting.\u00a0 Kobe has been playing typical Kobe ball and has scored 20 or more in his last 15 games, and only once has been held below 20 for the season, so he is going to get his.<\/p>\n

As mentioned, this game will be heavily determined upon defense and rebounding.\u00a0 While the Lakers’ are a high scoring team, the Bulls have the pieces to keep them in check, which is why NBA oddsmakers have set the total at a seemingly low 200 (it has since moved to 199).\u00a0 It should be a tough defensive battle between two of the better defensive teams in the league.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

L.A. Lakers AT Chicago Bulls December 10, 2010 at 8:05 PM EST Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 L.A. Lakers -2 Current Point Spread: L.A. Lakers -1.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 200 Current Total: 199 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 L.A. Lakers -110 \/ Chicago Bulls -110 Both teams enter tonight’s game with three game winning streaks.\u00a0 The Lakers have beat three poor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":3933,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[174,163,4095,67,187,909,4096],"class_list":["post-11406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-chicago-bulls","tag-joakim-noah","tag-keith-bogans","tag-kobe-bryant","tag-la-lakers","tag-pau-gasol","tag-ronnie-brewer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11406"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11408,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11406\/revisions\/11408"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}