A couple teams that the names on the roster indicate should be better than their current records will matchup on Thursday night when the New York Knicks will welcome the Chicago Bulls to the Big Apple. Derrick Rose got revenge against his former team when these two met back in November, but it’s Chicago that’s playing better basketball at the moment as they look for revenge.
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Odds Analysis
Headed into Monday, the Bulls had won three straight games—including a win over Cleveland—and have five wins in their last seven contests. They may finally be turning the corner after a rough start to the season.
Chicago has also covered the spread in three straight games, though prior to that they were just 5-15 ATS in their previous 20 games. There’s still plenty of work to do for the Bulls and we’ve seen flashes of success from them already this year before regressing, but there’s at least reason for optimism.
As for New York, the Knicks have been in free fall, losing seven of their last eight games as of Monday. They’ve faired a bit better ATS in that time, going 4-4. This is a team that’s 12-6 ATS at home, but they’re not playing as well as Chicago over the last week.
Injury Report
Neither team has any key players likely to miss much time, but the Knick’s star Carmelo Anthony is dealing with a right shoulder injury that he’s personally called ‘bad.’
The forward continues to play threw it and is unlikely to miss Thursday night’s contests as a result of the injury, but it’s never positive to have your best player banged up. He’s still putting up the numbers with a pair of double-doubles over his last three games, but he was limited against Indiana and ended up scoring just 17-points.
Meanwhile, Kristaps Porzingis had been dealing with an Achilles injury. He seems to be back to form.
With both the team’s current superstar and future superstar dealing with recent injuries, it’s a bit troublesome that this game will be coming on the keeps of a game at Philadelphia the night prior.
On the other side of the court, Jimmy Butler has put up 114-points, 28-rebounds and 19-assists, but fell ill at the beginning of the week. He’ll likely play, but will he back to 100-percent by Thursday.
Key Stat
The pace of play of both the Knicks and the Bulls provides a telling look into both these teams.
For New York, they’ve got all the talent in the world and have really improved their pace of play over last year, ranking No. 10 in the NBA with 101.7 possessions per game. They’re an offensive-minded team that has plenty of strong shooters in Anthony, Porzingis and Rose. They, however, rank near the bottom of the pack in defensive efficiency. In fact, they’ve allowed at least 111 points in four of their last five games.
On the flip side of that we have a Bulls team that’s a rather proficient defensive club, but one that—outside of Butler’s huge point totals—often lacks the offensive numbers to compete with the faster paced teams. That’s some of why the Knicks topped Chicago in their last meeting.
Interestingly, however, the possessions per game for the Bulls have jumped over their current winning streak to 102.1 from the season’s average of 97.9. Can they sustain that increase and keep pace with the Knicks or are they doomed to regress again?
Free NBA ATS Picks
Butler and Dwyane Wade scored more than half of the team’s 123 points in the overtime win over the Raptors on Saturday night. For Chicago’s offense to continue to perform, they’ll need that duo to continue to dominant the basketball as the rest of the team has a number of serviceable players, but it’s up to those two to drive the offense.
With New York’s defense scuffling and both Butler and Wade shooting well right now, you can count on the Bulls offense to once again outperform it’s season norms as it has in the last two games against both Toronto and Cleveland, two of the better teams in conference.
Meanwhile, with New York having continuing to slide, look for the Knicks to fall short at home in defending its early season win over Chicago. The Bulls get their revenge.
NBA Odds: Bulls 106, Knicks 101
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