The Boston Celtics, who took a little longer to get going than some fans and pundits would have expected this season, have put their scoring machine into high gear and will look to carry that into the Windy City tonight. The Celts open as 7.5-point favorites against the rival Bulls as the teams meet for the second time this season.
- Boston is 8-1 SU in its last 9 games when playing Chicago.
- The total has gone UNDER in 7 of Chicago's last 9 games when playing Boston.
- The Celtics have scored an average of 124.5 points in their last four games.
This is the Boston Team We Were Expecting
Boston stumbled a little out of the gate to a 10-10 record, but they’re now 14-10 after running off four consecutive wins, in impressive fashion, and their early season mediocrity is likely contributing to the line we see for this game.
The boys in Irish green decimated the Bulls by 21 points on November 14, so to ask them to win by a third of that when they’re actually playing much better at this point in the season is quite reasonable. I literally paused from writing this article to go and place this bet myself.
These Bulls Are Impotent
The once mighty Chicago Bulls are 4-16 SU and 10-10 ATS in their last 20 outings and just snapped a seven-game losing streak last night with a 114-112 win over Oklahoma City.
Chicago has scored an average of just 103 points in its last three games while opponents are scoring 112.3. That’s a -9.3 differential over that stretch which is contributing to their No. 28 point differential in the NBA this season. Only Atlanta and Phoenix have been worse.
My bet for Tonight
If you can find the -7.5, I’d advise that you take that side of this game as I think Boston wins this in a blowout. The Bulls are coming off a back-to-back while Boston had a travel day to come and get setup in Illinois. In fact, I'd take Boston up to double-digits in this game.
The Celtics looked really, really impressive in crushing the Knicks on Thursday, covering their fourth spread in a row, and there’s no reason to believe they won’t continue to roll tonight.
Chicago is 0-4 SU in its last four games after playing the night before – they lost those games by an average of 19.5 points. If you like betting team totals, I'd take a look at the UNDER for Chicago as Boston has one of the top defenses in the league combined with a weak Chicago offense.