NBA Betting Picks: Orlando Magic at Chicago Bulls

Added on Jan 28, 2011 by Jack Thurman in

NBA

If you bet on sports, your only real option for Friday night is in the NBA. The marquee matchup in the NBA for tonight will feature a pair of Eastern Conference heavyweights doing battle as the Orlando Magic head to ‘The Windy City’ to take on the Chicago Bulls.

Orlando Magic at Chicago Bulls
January 28, 2011 5:05 PM Pacific

On paper this promises to be an excellent matchup between a pair of teams that have been in excellent form of late. The Magic have won 6 of their last 10 games while the Bulls have won 8 of 10. Both teams are coming off victories in which they covered the respective NBA lines on the game– the Magic won and covered at Indiana as -5′ road favorites while the Bulls beat Milwaukee by 9 on their home floor as -7 point favorites. The Bulls are an impressive 21-4 SU/14-10 ATS at the United Center and 10-5 ATS against opponents with winning records. Orlando’s biggest weakness all season has been their play away from home–they’re just 13-10 SU/9-13-1 ATS on the road this year.

While you can make a strong case for Chicago from a pointspread perspective, at this price we just need to pick the outright winner of the game. With Joakim Noah out of the lineup for the Bulls, the Magic have a monumental matchup advantage with Dwight Howard. The only real option the Bulls have to defend Howard is Carlos Boozer, who is just coming off of an ankle injury and would be hard pressed to stop the Magic’s inside monster at the top of his game. Boozer may be able to do some damage on offense, but its hard to see him do anything to negate Howard on the other end of the floor. Ultimately, this is just a bad tactical matchup for the Bulls–the Magic have won 6 of the L8 meetings SU and destroyed Chicago 107-78 in their previous trip to the United Center this season.

Bet Orlando Magic PK over Chicago Bulls