NBA Betting Picks: San Antonio Spurs at Chicago Bulls

Added on Feb 17, 2011 by Jack Thurman in

NBA

Sportsbooks will be offering only two NBA betting opportunities on Thursday night as the league is heading into their All Star Break. NBA action will resume next Tuesday but in the meantime we’ve got a very interesting matchup between the Western Conference leading San Antonio Spurs and the Central Division leading Chicago Bulls. Both teams are in exceptional form heading into the All Star break having won 8 of their last 10 games.

San Antonio Spurs at Chicago Bulls
February 17, 2011 5:05 PM Pacific

The games heading into the All Star break are always tricky to handicap and you never know how the teams involved will approach them. That was clearly evident last night as the Cleveland Cavaliers avenged a 50+ loss to the Lakers at the Staples Center by beating the World Champs outright as +10′ home underdogs. We don’t expect to see either one of these teams ‘phoning in’ a performance here. There’s plenty of reasons to like the Spurs in this spot–not the least of which is the fact that they have the best record in the NBA at 46-9 and the best road record at 21-7. Not only have they dominated straight up on the road they’ve also taken care of business against the spread to the tune of 19-8-1. As an underdog they’re 6-2 SU/7-1 ATS and as a dog in this price range (3 points or less) they’re 4-2 SU/5-1 ATS. They’ve been at their best against opponents with a winning record going 18-7 SU/17-7-1 ATS.

The Bulls can’t quite match the Spurs’ point spread superlatives but they’ve got a couple of strong situational records that are relevant here. In non-conference play the Bulls are 16-7 SU/ATS and in ‘revenge’ games they’re 15-8 ATS. Both teams can head into the All Star Break rightfully happy about what they’ve done so far, but there’s one compelling reason that we like the Bulls here–I call it the ‘spurned All Star’ factor. You know the drill–guys who *think* they deserved an All Star roster spot ‘make a statement’ to underscore their argument. LaMarcus Aldridge, for example, got screwed over by not getting an All Star bid more than anyone in the league and he went for 34 points and 7 boards last night as the Blazers came from behind to beat New Orleans. In Chicago’s case, the ‘spurned All Star’ is Carlos Boozer and we expect him to have a huge game here. Boozer probably doesn’t deserve an All Star bid due to the number of games he missed with an injury but when he’s healthy he’s a beast. We look for him to ‘make a statement’ here and propel the Bulls to a victory over a road weary Spurs team.

Bet Chicago Bulls -2 over San Antonio Spurs