Nine big games make up the NBA schedule tonight, and none of the nine is bigger than the Chicago Bulls vs. Brooklyn Nets. The top two teams in the East will do battle for the third time this season, and the Nets will try to both stop a recent losing skid and prevent a season series sweep by the Bulls.
Elsewhere across the league, Dallas visits MSG and the Knicks, Philly tries to stay hot hosting Charlotte, and Cleveland goes toe to toe with Donovan Mitchell and the Jazz.
Bettors have plenty to choose from tonight, but these three lines are our favorites on this strong slate of games:
The Knicks have played fairly well of late with home wins against San Antonio and Boston to show over the last week, but when they don’t have it, they really don’t have it. Their average losing margin over their past ten losses is nearly 13 points. It’s not often that the Knicks are right there and just miss out on the W.
Enter Dallas, who is blowing teams out at a remarkable pace since Luka Doncic returned to the lineup. They’ve won their last six games – all by at least nine points and most in the high teens or twenties. And some of those games are against really strong opponents, like Golden State and Chicago. New York’s not in that class. For such a small number, take the Mavs.
The Kings don’t deserve this kind of respect, even at home, and the Lakers don’t really deserve this kind of disrespect, even on the road.
LA has been a pretty poor team against the spread this year, but since shifting LeBron to center, they’ve unlocked something special and covered five of seven games, including an eight-point win against the Kings as 6.5-point favorites at home.
The Kings have lost five consecutive games, only covering the spread once. They don’t have the firepower to keep up with the small-ball LA lineup. At 2.5 points, play the favorite.
How many more times does Brooklyn have to fail to cover before they start getting evaluated by oddsmakers appropriately? They’ve failed to cover seven straight games – five of which were outright losses as favorites of 4.5 points or more. And they’re the second worst ATS team in the league this season at 14-24-1.
Now they visit a team that’s ahead of them in the standings, that’s 22-15 ATS on the year, and they’ll have to do so with James Harden nursing a mild knee injury? They should not be essentially even odds against the Bulls in Chicago. Go with the home team.
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