{"id":14544,"date":"2011-03-30T14:58:10","date_gmt":"2011-03-30T19:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=14544"},"modified":"2011-03-30T14:58:10","modified_gmt":"2011-03-30T19:58:10","slug":"nba-handicapping-chicago-bulls-at-minnesota-timberwolves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/nba-handicapping-chicago-bulls-at-minnesota-timberwolves-14544\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Handicapping: Chicago Bulls At Minnesota Timberwolves"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chicago Bulls AT Minnesota Timberwolves<\/strong>
\nMar 30, 2011 at 8 PM EST<\/strong>
\nOpening line:\u00a0 Chicago -9<\/strong>
\nCurrent Line:\u00a0 Chicago -9.5<\/strong>
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 198.5<\/strong>
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 197<\/strong>
\nOpening Moneyline:\u00a0 Chi -500 \/ Min +400<\/strong>
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 Chi -550 \/ Min +445<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Derrick Rose's drive and talent has propelled Chicago to the top of the Eastern Conference<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Bulls are heavy favorites in this game, as you might expect from a team that has won 12 of their past 13 and the Bulls sit atop the Eastern Conference, a place few expected them to be in light of Miami’s off seasons move and Boston’s perennial greatness.\u00a0 The Bulls didn’t look like that team in their last game against Philadelphia, especially in the first quarter when they ended up finding themselves down 14 points as the horn sounded.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe came out sluggish. This one is definitely on me,\u201d Rose said. \u201cJust me taking care of the ball and missing shots that I normally hit. \u2026 Just careless, some of them was me driving and kicking the ball off my foot.\u201d<\/p>\n

The key to resuming their winning ways, other than having Derrick Rose continue to dominate, is going to be their defense.\u00a0 They hold opponents to 92.1 points per game, 2nd lowest in the league.\u00a0 However, over the last 2 games they have given up 101 points on average and coach Tom Thibodeau is not pleased at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last couple of games, the first half we haven\u2019t played defense,\u201d Thibodeau said. \u201cWe have to take a look at how we approach the game, how we practice and make the corrections real fast. Things can change fast in this league.\u201d<\/p>\n

Minnesota has been playing without Kevin Love, but Michael Beasley has stepped up in his absense.\u00a0 They still aren’t winning, but they have been keeping it close against quality opponents.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like we showed a lot of character,\u201d Beasley said after scoring 28.\u00a0 “We could\u2019ve just let them beat us by 60 points. But we fought back and gave ourselves a chance to win the last two minutes. Of course we wanted to win, but it didn\u2019t turn out that way. A lot of guys played well, and we learned a lot from this game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some betting trends:<\/p>\n

Chicago is 12-2 SU over their last 14 games and the total has gone OVER in 5 of their last 6 games.\u00a0 The total has also gone OVER in 4 of their last 5 on the road and they are 6-1 SU in their last 7 road games.\u00a0 The Bulls are 7-16 SU in their last 23 against the Wolves and the total has gone UNDER in 5 of their last 7 against Minnesota, as well.\u00a0 The total has gone OVER in 11 of the last 15 against Minnesota on the road and Chicago is 2-10 SU in their last 12 road games against the Minnesota Timberwolves.<\/p>\n

Minnesota is 0-5 SU in their last 5 games and the total has gone OVER in 4 of their last 6 games.\u00a0 The total has UNDER in 11 of their last 15 at home and they are 3-11 SU in their last 14 at home.\u00a0 Minnesota is 1-4 ATS in their last 5 against the Chicago Bulls and the total has gone UNDER in 5 of the last 7 meetings with the Bulls.\u00a0 Minnesota is 16-7 SU in their last 23 against Chicago and the total has gone OVER in 11 of the last 15 games at home against the Bulls.\u00a0 Minnesota is 10-2 SU in their last 12 home games against the Bulls.<\/p>\n

Key Matchups:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Luol Deng vs. Michael Beasley<\/strong><\/p>\n

Both players are crucial to their team’s success, but with star forward Kevin Love out, Beasley is more heavily needed by the Wolves, both scoring and on the boards.\u00a0 Over his last 3 games he is averaging 20 points per game and 8 rebounds per game, a full point better an 2.4 rebounds better than his season average.\u00a0 Deng has the length to frustrate Beasley, but Beasley’s versatility should serve him well.\u00a0 If he can post Deng up and use his superior strength to get good position on the block, Deng could be in for a long night.\u00a0 After a strong 7 games in a row, Deng has fallen off in the last two, scoring just 16 pionts and grabbing 14 rebounds in a loss to Philly and a victory against Milwaukee.\u00a0 The Bulls are going to need more from him in the playoffs, but can probably manage to suffer through his struggles right now, especially against the lowly Timberwolves.<\/p>\n

Joakim Noah vs. Darko Milicic<\/strong><\/p>\n

Milicic had a strong stretch of games earlier ni the season and over the last two games he appears to have found that form again.\u00a0 The last two games Milicic has averaged 15.5 points per game and 6.5 rebounds per game, both above his season average, especially the scoring as he is averaging only 9 a game on the year.\u00a0 Noah will probably focus more on help side defense than one on one coverage with Milicic, so Milicic may be able to get some easy garbage baskets.\u00a0 Truly, both these players’ contributions are most seen at the defensive end, and Darko has blocked 2 or more shots in 3 of his last 4 games.\u00a0 Noah has had back to back double doubles and has averaged 11 points per game, 12 rebounds per game, and 2 blocks per game over his last 2 games.<\/p>\n

Given the relative importance of this game with regard to the Bulls maintaining their number one seed in the Eastern Conference, you can expect Thibodeau’s crew to come out focused and ready to dispose of the Timberwolves, especially in light of the fact that they are coming off an embarassing double digit loss to the Sixers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chicago Bulls AT Minnesota Timberwolves Mar 30, 2011 at 8 PM EST Opening line:\u00a0 Chicago -9 Current Line:\u00a0 Chicago -9.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 198.5 Current Total:\u00a0 197 Opening Moneyline:\u00a0 Chi -500 \/ Min +400 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 Chi -550 \/ Min +445 The Bulls are heavy favorites in this game, as you might expect from a team […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":8683,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[174,3307,521,163,3206,44,677],"class_list":["post-14544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-chicago-bulls","tag-darko-milicic","tag-derrick-rose","tag-joakim-noah","tag-luol-deng","tag-michael-beasley","tag-minnesota-timberwolves"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14544","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=14544"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14544\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14545,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14544\/revisions\/14545"}],"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=14544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}