{"id":11804,"date":"2010-12-22T18:02:02","date_gmt":"2010-12-22T23:02:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=11804"},"modified":"2010-12-22T18:02:02","modified_gmt":"2010-12-22T23:02:02","slug":"nba-betting-preview-chicago-bulls-at-washington-wizards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/nba-betting-preview-chicago-bulls-at-washington-wizards-11804\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Betting Preview: Chicago Bulls at Washington Wizards"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chicago Bulls At Washington Wizards
\nDecember 22nd, 2010 at 7:05 PM EST
\nOpening Line:\u00a0 Chicago -2
\nCurrent Line:\u00a0 Chicago -3
\nOpening Total: 194
\nCurrent Total: 194
\nOpening Moneyline:\u00a0 Chicago -155 \/ Washington +135
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 Chicago -150 \/ Washington +130<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Boozer, this year a Bull, will look to exploit Andray Blatche in pick and roll situations<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Washington has been nothing short of horrible this year, but most of it can be attributed to their 0-13 road record.\u00a0 They have been a decent 7-6 at home this year, and this will be a home game.\u00a0 They have been without John Wall recently and his status for tonight’s game is doubtful.\u00a0 After trading away their other high scorer, Gilbert Arenas, for Rashard Lewis, it could be expected that they have some difficulty scoring the ball tonight.\u00a0 Lewis is expected to make his debut tonight, but will need to play much better than he did in Orlando for Washington to have any chance at winning this game.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s very professional and he\u2019s going to be extremely motivated,\u201d Saunders said of Lewis. \u201cWe\u2019re going to try and use him a little bit how he was used in Seattle – move him around, let him play a couple of positions and run some plays for him. It\u2019s one of his positives. You can move him around.\u201d<\/p>\n

Washington won last game against the Bobcats, but NBA oddsmakers have set the line in Chicago’s favor for tonight’s game. It’s easy to see why:\u00a0 Chicago has been on fire and have won 8 of their last 10 games to pull them to the third seed in the Eastern conference, two games behind Miami, and five games behind conference leading Boston.<\/p>\n

While Washington is likely without Wall, Chicago is going to be without their starting center and leading rebounder Joakim Noah.\u00a0 Noah injured his thumb and needed surgery, requiring that he miss the next four weeks.\u00a0 Boozer should be able to pick up the slack on the boards, but Chicago will miss Noah’s interior defense.<\/p>\n

Some betting trends:\u00a0 The total has gone UNDER in 7 of Chicago’s last 10 road games and it has gone UNDER in 6 of Chicago’s last 7 against Washington.\u00a0 Chicago is 1-5 ATS in their last 6 games against Washington and has won 4 of their last 6 in Washington.\u00a0 The total has gone UNDER in all 5 of the last road games in Washington and Chicago has won but 5 of the last 20 matchups in Washington.<\/p>\n

The total has gone UNDER in all 5 of Washington’s last 5 games.\u00a0 They are 2-4 ATS in their last 6 games and the total has gone UNDER in all 5 of Washington’s lsat 5 home games.<\/p>\n

Some key matchups to keep an eye on:
\n
\nKirk Hinrich vs. Derrick Rose<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hinrich is a decent defender but it takes more than decent defense to stop Rose, who is explosive and strong enough to give every point guard in the league difficulty on defense.\u00a0 Rose is averaging 24.2 points per game and 8.6 assists per game and is averaging 28 points per game over the last two games for Chicago.\u00a0 Last time out against Philly in a blowout Bulls win, he had 22 points and 12 assists in only 29 minutes of play.\u00a0 Look for Rose to attempt to exploit his speed advantage on Hinrich to get into the paint and create for himself and Boozer & Deng.
\n
\nAndray Blatche vs. Carlos Boozer<\/strong><\/p>\n

Blatche has been something of a disappointment this year, given his strong play down the stretch of last year on a depleted Wizards roster.\u00a0 He has a huge advantage on Boozer with his length and speed, but Boozer is not a particular poor defender, just undersized.\u00a0 Blatche will look to take Boozer to the basket and utilize his superior length for easy baskets, but Boozer will likely punish Blatche on the other end with a variety of jumpers and turnarounds, his bread and butter.\u00a0 Blatche will have his hands full with the pick and roll of Rose and Boozer, as well.<\/p>\n

NBA oddsmakers have set the spread rather close tonight given Chicago’s superior play and record.\u00a0 Perhaps they are taking into account Washington’s decent play at home, but it seems they have not factored into account the absense of Wall and the traded Gilbert Arenas.\u00a0 Expect Washington to have trouble scoring tonight; and consequently, trouble covering the spread.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chicago Bulls At Washington Wizards December 22nd, 2010 at 7:05 PM EST Opening Line:\u00a0 Chicago -2 Current Line:\u00a0 Chicago -3 Opening Total: 194 Current Total: 194 Opening Moneyline:\u00a0 Chicago -155 \/ Washington +135 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 Chicago -150 \/ Washington +130 Washington has been nothing short of horrible this year, but most of it can be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":5134,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[174,644],"class_list":["post-11804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-chicago-bulls","tag-washington-wizards"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11804","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=11804"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11804\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11805,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11804\/revisions\/11805"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}