{"id":13585,"date":"2011-02-23T09:20:33","date_gmt":"2011-02-23T14:20:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=13585"},"modified":"2011-02-23T09:50:59","modified_gmt":"2011-02-23T14:50:59","slug":"chicago-bulls-at-toronto-raptors-nba-picks-betting-predictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/chicago-bulls-at-toronto-raptors-nba-picks-betting-predictions-13585\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago Bulls at Toronto Raptors NBA Picks & Betting Predictions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chicago Bulls at Toronto Raptors
\nWednesday, 2\/23\/11, 7:00 PM EDT
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Chicago -8.5
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Chicago -8
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 199
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 199<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The Chicago Bulls are major road favorites and coming off an impressive win over the San Antonio Spurs<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Chicago will get back a familiar face in the lineup tonight and go for its fifth consecutive win Wednesday night against Toronto at the Air Canada Centre.\u00a0 Center Joakim Noah will be paired up with forward Carlos Boozer for just the tenth time this season, as he\u2019s been out with a right thumb injury since November 27.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t know how he\u2019s going to respond once he\u2019s out there,\u201d said coach Tom Thibodeau.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019ll see how he is.\u201d\u00a0 The Bulls have managed to do quite well in his absence by recording a 38-16 overall mark before the All-Star break, including a 13-12 record on the road.\u00a0 The team is also coming off one of its more impressive victories of the season, handing the San Antonio Spurs a 109-99 loss, led by a career-high 42 points from point guard Derrick Rose.\u00a0 Chicago is 10-2 ATS when playing with three or more days of rest and currently a road favorite on the NBA lines page.<\/p>\n

The Bulls have failed to win the season series against the Raptors the past three years, producing a 4-7 record over that span.\u00a0 Currently this season, Chicago is 2-0 against Toronto and is averaging 110.5 points per game, while holding the downtrodden team to just 92 points a contest.\u00a0 In three games versus the club during the 2009-10 campaign, Rose averaged 16.3 points per game and 6.0 assists.\u00a0 It\u2019s important to note that the squad produced a 23-8 record while Noah was out with an injury.<\/p>\n

Toronto returned from the break with a disappointing 114-101 effort at Charlotte Tuesday night and now gets set to play the second game of a back-to-back set.\u00a0 The Raptors shot 50 percent from the field against the Bobcats, but it wasn\u2019t nearly enough to stop them from suffering their 11th straight road defeat.\u00a0 \u201cI know it will turn around,\u201d said guard Jerryd Bayless.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re young, we\u2019re learning.\u201d\u00a0 The offense will need to try and produce at least 102 points in tonight\u2019s contest to have a chance of winning, as the team is 5-31 when failing to reach that mark.\u00a0 It won\u2019t be easy against a team that has allowed just four of its last 36 opponents to hit that number.\u00a0 Toronto is 19-22 ATS as an underdog this season.<\/p>\n

The Raptors are led offensively by the play of center Andrea Bargnani, who came into last night\u2019s contest averaging 26.9 points through seven games in February.\u00a0 He ranks sixth among all Eastern Conference players with 21.9 points for the season.\u00a0 Toronto has produced a 1-12 record in the first game of a back-to-back set this year, while going 4-8 in the second game.<\/p>\n

Bettors are likely to back the Bulls due to their 10-4 ATS mark in Toronto, while the Raptors are 1-8 ATS versus the Eastern Conference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chicago Bulls at Toronto Raptors Wednesday, 2\/23\/11, 7:00 PM EDT Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Chicago -8.5 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Chicago -8 Opening Total:\u00a0 199 Current Total:\u00a0 199 Chicago will get back a familiar face in the lineup tonight and go for its fifth consecutive win Wednesday night against Toronto at the Air Canada Centre.\u00a0 Center Joakim […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":8683,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[4385,2067,174,521,3622,693],"class_list":["post-13585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-air-canada-centre","tag-carlos-boozer","tag-chicago-bulls","tag-derrick-rose","tag-eastern-conference","tag-toronto-raptors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13585","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\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13585"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13587,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13585\/revisions\/13587"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}