{"id":15040,"date":"2011-04-21T00:51:50","date_gmt":"2011-04-21T05:51:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=15040"},"modified":"2011-04-21T00:53:19","modified_gmt":"2011-04-21T05:53:19","slug":"game-3-nba-betting-pacers-hoping-to-earn-first-playoff-win-against-bulls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/game-3-nba-betting-pacers-hoping-to-earn-first-playoff-win-against-bulls-15040\/","title":{"rendered":"Game 3 NBA Betting: Pacers hoping to earn first playoff win against Bulls"},"content":{"rendered":"

2011 NBA Eastern Conference Playoffs<\/strong>
\nFirst Round – Game 3<\/strong>
\nChicago Bulls at Indiana Pacers, Conseco Fieldhouse, Indianapolis, IN<\/strong>
\nThursday, April 21, 2011, 7:00 pm Eastern, TV:\u00a0 NBATV<\/strong>
\nOpening Line: Bulls -4<\/strong>
\nCurrent Line: Bulls -4.5<\/strong>
\nOpening Total: 189<\/strong>
\nCurrent Total: 189<\/strong>
\nMoney Line: Bulls -200 \/ Pacers +170<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Pacers
Danny Granger and the Pacers look to avoid falling behind 0-3 against the Bulls.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The top-seeded Chicago Bulls (64-20) let the eighth-seeded Indiana Pacers (37-47) hang around in the first two games of their Eastern Conference first-round playoff series at the United Center but will look to take a commanding 3-0 lead when they hit the road for Game 3 on Thursday.\u00a0 The Bulls (-4.5) have won 11 straight games dating back to the regular season along with 23 of 25, with one of those losses\u00a0 taking place at Conseco Fieldhouse on March 18.<\/p>\n

The Pacers won that last meeting at home 115-108 in overtime despite Chicago point guard Derrick Rose tying a career high with 42 points.\u00a0 Like Game 1 of this series, Rose did most of his damage from the free-throw line, hitting 18 of 21 attempts before fouling out in the extra session.\u00a0 He had made all three of his free throws after getting fouled on a 3-pointer with one second remaining in regulation to force OT.<\/p>\n

The first two games of this series have been comparable close calls won by the home team with Rose carrying the offensive load.\u00a0 He has scored 75 points so far while averaging seven rebounds and six assists.\u00a0 Indiana knows Chicago\u2019s offense goes through him and will try to force others to step up whether starting point guard Darren Collison can play or not.<\/p>\n

Collison sprained his ankle at the end of the first half in Game 2 and sat out the rest of the 96-90 loss on Monday.\u00a0 He hopes to play, but Pacers head coach Frank Vogel is not counting on it.\u00a0 Backup A.J. Price (13 points in Game 2) and T.J. Ford (five) are ready to log major minutes if needed and would be responsible for trying to slow down Rose.<\/p>\n

Vogel joked about trying to keep Bulls fans out of Conseco so his team can have some sort of homecourt advantage, and that figures to be an issue considering Chicago is a short drive away.\u00a0 The Pacers ranked last in attendance during the regular season but have won five of six there.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to fill the building with blue and gold,\u201d Vogel said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to have metal detectors out there to scan the metal people are bringing in the building, but people who are wearing red \u2026 they\u2019re not going to get through the metal detectors, either.\u201d<\/p>\n

Critics have been tough on Chicago following the first two games, and rightfully so.\u00a0 The team failed to cover a double-digit spread in both games and has gone a disappointing 3-7 vs. the line in its past 10.\u00a0 The UNDER is also 6-2 in the last eight games overall for the Bulls.<\/p>\n

If you are betting this NBA game between the Pacers & Bulls, make sure to check out the winning NBA picks packages we offer.\u00a0 You can also get free winners on our free NBA picks page.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2011 NBA Eastern Conference Playoffs First Round – Game 3 Chicago Bulls at Indiana Pacers, Conseco Fieldhouse, Indianapolis, IN Thursday, April 21, 2011, 7:00 pm Eastern, TV:\u00a0 NBATV Opening Line: Bulls -4 Current Line: Bulls -4.5 Opening Total: 189 Current Total: 189 Money Line: Bulls -200 \/ Pacers +170 The top-seeded Chicago Bulls (64-20) let […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":194,"featured_media":4376,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[4872,174,3622,4672,4673,4674,4438,1553,565,4439,1985,4857,4858,4882,4440],"class_list":["post-15040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-bulls-pacers-playoff-preview","tag-chicago-bulls","tag-eastern-conference","tag-first-round","tag-first-round-betting","tag-first-round-picks","tag-free-pro-basketball-pick","tag-game-3","tag-indiana-pacers","tag-nba-basketball-odds","tag-nba-picks","tag-nba-playoff-betting","tag-nba-playoff-picks","tag-nbatv","tag-pro-basketball-betting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15040","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\/194"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15040"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15042,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15040\/revisions\/15042"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}