{"id":22569,"date":"2012-04-01T09:25:45","date_gmt":"2012-04-01T14:25:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=22569"},"modified":"2012-04-01T09:25:45","modified_gmt":"2012-04-01T14:25:45","slug":"nba-predictions-chicago-bulls-vs-oklahoma-city-thunder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/nba-predictions-chicago-bulls-vs-oklahoma-city-thunder-22569\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Predictions: Chicago Bulls vs. Oklahoma City Thunder"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chicago Bulls at Oklahoma City Thunder
\nSunday, 4\/1\/12, 1:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ABC
\nOpening Point Spread: Oklahoma City -4
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Oklahoma City -5.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 194
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 192.5
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Oklahoma City Thunder are led by forward Kevin Durant and point guard Russell Westbrook offensively<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Chicago has won six of its last seven games and comes off an 83-71 victory over the Detroit Pistons as 11-point home favorites on Friday night.\u00a0 The Bulls will be playing their ninth consecutive game without the services of point guard Derrick Rose, who is still nursing a groin injury.\u00a0 The team has registered an impressive 21-6 road record this season, including a 6-2 mark versus Western Conference foes.\u00a0 Chicago is 4-0 ATS as an underdog and the \u201cunder\u201d is 3-1 in that situation.<\/p>\n

The Bulls are 14-5 overall this season without Rose on the floor, while they\u2019ve also managed to win 17 of their last 20 games.\u00a0 Chicago has captured seven consecutive road games, winning those contests by an average of 13.4 points per game.\u00a0 Forwards Carlos Boozer and Luol Deng will have to provide much of the offense in this marquee matchup, averaging 15.6 and 15.4 points per game respectively.\u00a0 The franchise leads the NBA in outscoring opponents by 8.7 points per game.<\/p>\n

Oklahoma City is playing some of its best basketball of the 2011-12 and will try to win its sixth game in a row on Sunday.\u00a0 The Thunder return home after sweeping a two-game road trip against the Portland Trail Blazers and Los Angeles Lakers, while they\u2019ve managed to cover four of their last five games overall.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re on a nice streak right now, we\u2019re playing good basketball,\u201d commented Thunder head coach Scott Brooks.\u00a0 All-Star point guard Russell Westbrook has been at the center of the team\u2019s recent spurt, averaging 31.5 points per game over the last four contests.\u00a0 Oklahoma City is 14-12 ATS at home this season and the \u201cover\u201d is 15-11 in that situation.<\/p>\n

The Thunder are 22-4 at home this season, including a 6-1 mark versus Eastern Conference opponents.\u00a0 Oklahoma City leads the NBA in averaging 103.7 points per game, which has been helped by scoring 115.4 points per game on 52 percent shooting over the team\u2019s current win streak.\u00a0 Westbrook and forward Kevin Durant are the highest scoring duo in the league, combining to score 52.1 points per game.<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely back the Bulls due to their 35-17 ATS mark in their last 52 road games, while the Thunder are 1-8 ATS at home versus teams with a winning road record.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on a winning season and let the NBA handicappers at Maddux Sports line your pockets with cash.\u00a0 Long term packages are available now!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chicago Bulls at Oklahoma City Thunder Sunday, 4\/1\/12, 1:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ABC Opening Point Spread: Oklahoma City -4 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Oklahoma City -5.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 194 Current Total:\u00a0 192.5 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker Chicago has won six of its last seven games and comes off an 83-71 victory over the Detroit Pistons as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":15517,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[174,521,3622,18,399,3298,3693],"class_list":["post-22569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-chicago-bulls","tag-derrick-rose","tag-eastern-conference","tag-nba","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-russell-westbrook","tag-western-conference"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22569","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=22569"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22570,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22569\/revisions\/22570"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}