{"id":13679,"date":"2011-02-26T08:28:48","date_gmt":"2011-02-26T13:28:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=13679"},"modified":"2011-02-26T08:28:48","modified_gmt":"2011-02-26T13:28:48","slug":"bradley-center-battle-chicago-bulls-at-milwaukee-bucks-free-nba-picks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/bradley-center-battle-chicago-bulls-at-milwaukee-bucks-free-nba-picks-13679\/","title":{"rendered":"Bradley Center Battle: Chicago Bulls at Milwaukee Bucks Free NBA Picks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chicago Bulls at Milwaukee Bucks
\nSaturday, 2\/26\/11, 8:30 PM EDT
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Chicago -3.5
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Chicago -3.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 181
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 182<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The Milwaukee Bucks will need a big game from John Salmons in order to pick up the home underdog victory Saturday night<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Chicago opens a five-game trip Saturday night and will look to avoid dropping a third consecutive game at the Bradley Center against the Milwaukee Bucks.\u00a0 The Bulls are 11-0 against Central Division opponents this year and have already handed the Bucks two losses while facing off at the United Center, including a 92-83 victory on January 24.\u00a0 \u00a0 The team is coming off an exciting 93-89 home win over the Miami Heat last time out, as MVP candidate Derrick Rose contributed 26 points and 6 assists, while Luol Deng poured in 18 of his 20 points in the second half.\u00a0 \u201cI felt like I needed to be more involved,\u201d Deng commented.\u00a0 \u201cOne way I did that was to bring more energy.\u201d\u00a0 Chicago is a solid 33-22 ATS on the season and currently a road favorite on the NBA lines page.<\/p>\n

The Bulls are a .500 squad on the road this season with a 13-13 overall record, including a losing 5-7 mark against Eastern Conference opponents.\u00a0 The last time the team posted a winning road record in a single season was 1997-98, when they went 25-16.\u00a0 Chicago is 6-4 against Milwaukee in its last 10 meetings and hold a 7-5 record in the series at the Bradley Center since the 2004-05 campaign.\u00a0 If the club plans to take over the No. 1 seed in the East, its defense will need to continue playing at a high level, holding 12 of its last 16 foes to 90 points or less.<\/p>\n

Milwaukee needs to make a run in order to move up from its current 10th place standing in the Eastern Conference and will be playing the next four games at home.\u00a0 The Bucks were unable to control the Knicks on the offensive end last time out, dropping a 114-106 decision at Madison Square Garden.\u00a0 \u201cI would say there was pressure with the expectations,\u201d said center Andrew Bogut.\u00a0 \u201cPeople were talking about us winning the division and being a top three or four team in the East.\u201d\u00a0 Bogut will need to improve upon his recent performance in order for the team to make up ground, as he\u2019s averaged 6.8 points over the last five games.\u00a0 Milwaukee is 0-2 ATS as a home underdog of 3.5 to 6 points this season.<\/p>\n

The Bucks have taken great care of the basketball over the last five games, forcing 26 more turnovers than their opponents in that span.\u00a0 Milwaukee will need to move the basketball around in order to pull off a win in tonight\u2019s contest due to Chicago holding a +11.0 advantage in assists over the first two meetings.\u00a0 One key player to watch in tonight\u2019s game is John Salmons, who was traded to the club from Chicago, as he\u2019s scoring 22 points a night over the past four games.<\/p>\n

Bettors will be interested in backing the Bulls due to their 19-7 ATS record with a day of rest, while the Bucks are 1-6-1 ATS versus the Center Division.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chicago Bulls at Milwaukee Bucks Saturday, 2\/26\/11, 8:30 PM EDT Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Chicago -3.5 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Chicago -3.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 181 Current Total:\u00a0 182 Chicago opens a five-game trip Saturday night and will look to avoid dropping a third consecutive game at the Bradley Center against the Milwaukee Bucks.\u00a0 The Bulls are 11-0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":9356,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[4549,174,521,3622,3210,663],"class_list":["post-13679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-bradley-center","tag-chicago-bulls","tag-derrick-rose","tag-eastern-conference","tag-john-salmons","tag-milwaukee-bucks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13679","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=13679"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13681,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13679\/revisions\/13681"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}