Posted on 12/18/2007 2:31:49 PM

Bet on NBA - Los Angeles Lakers (pk) vs. Chicago Bulls (pk)

By D.S. Williamson

The Lakers are okay this year, but the Bulls just seem bad. For some reason the Kobe trade talk didn’t affect the Lakers at all but absolutely destroyed whatever chemistry that the Bulls built up during that excellent run in the playoffs last year.

Maybe, we all gave the Bulls too much credit during the off-season. Ben Gordon and Luol Deng are good players, but neither one is great like the Kobester. Ben Wallace, the Bulls’ center, still doesn’t know how to make a free-throw. Yep, it seems like we gave Chicago too much love during the off-season. Maybe, they just got lucky last year.

In any case this line opened with the Bulls giving the Lakers point, but it’s gone down to a pick’em game. I can’t go against that logic. Here are some NBA  betting trends:

The Los Angeles Lakers are 11 and 5 against the spread on the road in their last 16 games.

The Chicago Bulls are 7 and 19 against the spread in their last 26 games versus a team from the NBA Pacific Division.

The Chicago Bulls are 7 and 15 against the spread in their last 22 games overall.

Every trend above points to the Lakers winning this game outright. I have to say that I agree with these trends. One trend that I didn’t write above is that the Los Angeles Lakers are 6 and 4 against the spread on the road this year. That’s pretty good. Anything above .500 on the road against the spread is very, very good, actually.

That makes the Lakers tough in this situation as the Chicago Bulls are 4 and 6 against the spread at home this year.

The bottom-line, I believe, is that the Lakers are a better team than the Bulls. They let one get away from them the other night in Oakland against the Golden State Warriors, but this game should be very different for them. Andrew Bynum will outplay Ben Wallace in the middle and there is absolute nobody on the Bulls squad who comes close to Kobe Bryant.

The Lakers are putting things together this year. They may not make it too far in the playoffs in the Western Conference, but they’ve got more than enough to handle an Eastern Conference squad like the Chicago Bulls.

The BetUS basketball betting line is Los Angeles Lakers pk versus the Chicago Bulls on the road.

I like the Lakers to win this game straight-up.

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