After yesterday’s successful 1st half play, I’m going with another one here. This is a very poor spot for Detroit, from both a scheduling and motivational perspective.
They managed a very rare road win in Orlando last night and now travel to New Orleans on no rest. They’ll face a motivated and improving Pelicans side looking for revenge after last week’s double-digit loss to Detroit.
That game saw a triple-double from Mason Plumlee and a big game from Delon Wright, who’ll be out here. I’m expecting Zion to enjoy a field day on the inside, while Detroit struggles to put up points. They should start fast here, which is why I prefer the first half -5.5 over the double-digit full game line.
It’s never a great sign to side with the public, but I’ll do so if it means fading the Minnesota Timberwolves. The Wolves are an atrocious 3-14 on the road this season, winning 1 of their last 10 games in all arenas.
They come up against a Bulls side that has hovered around .500 and is 60% ATS on the season. They’ve just beaten two successive inferior teams and I’m expecting them to make that 3 straight here.
Russell and Culver have proven to be big losses for Minnesota, who have really struggled on the perimeter of late. This is also a very poor scheduling spot, playing a b2b and 3rd game in 4 nights on the road. I’m expecting this number to go up, so the current -4 for the Bulls should at least provide a hedging opportunity before tip.