NBA: Handicap hands wins to Bulls and Lakers
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The NBA season is heating up and tonight sees one of the league’s form teams attempt to record a fifth straight win in front of the ESPN cameras.
Chicago will have already been confident of victory over Brooklyn but a handicap of +3.5 makes them a sure bet in our 11/2 accumulator.
Adding Detroit to make home advantage count against the hapless Knicks and the Lakers to maintain their newfound offensive ability against Portland could see a return of £69.58 from a stake of just £10.
Chicago (33-26) will be confident of stretching their current win streak to five when travelling to Brooklyn (28-29) having beaten the Nets twice already this campaign.
The Bulls are 10-1 from their last 11, 4-1 from five on the road and winners of six of the last eight meetings with Jason Kidd’s side.
The Nets are 11-2 from 13 at the Barclays Center and looking to go .500 for the first time since November 5th, but with the Bulls in scintillating form and given a 3.5-point start this is a foregone conclusion.
Chicago dispatched the Knicks 109-90 last time out to score 100+ for the fourth game straight and with Joakim Noah scoring a fifth career triple double in that match the visitors have a game winner ready to help them to victory here.
The above-mentioned game highlighted the Knicks’ (21-39) current predicament, with Mike Woodson’s side now on a six-game losing streak.
Five of those six losses have come by more than five points and with the visitors averaging just 91.7 points over their last three outings the Pistons (23-36) will be confident of ending their own four-game skid.
All of Detroit’s last seven victories have come by six points or more and with the hosts 14-7 against the Knicks as hosts the omens look good for a handicap win at The Palace.
The Lakers (20-39) have been the laughing stock of the league for much of the season and coach Mike D’Antoni has been urging his players to just have fun with the remainder of the campaign.
They did exactly that when posting season-highs of 126 points and 60 per cent from the floor against Sacremento last time out in a game that also saw a franchise record of 19 three-pointers hit from 27 attempts.
This attacking prowess and a lack of pressure on LA means a +12-point handicap will be too big for Portland (41-18) to overcome.
With Portland in search of a sixth straight win against a side that is 2-7 from their last nine on the road Blazers coach Terry Stott will rightly see a win as a formality.
However, with just one of his side’s last 10 victories coming by more than 12 points and just three of the Lakers last 15 defeats coming by a greater margin, backing the Californians (+12) is the only way to go.
All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.
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