Posted on 1/3/2008 4:39:53 PM

NBA Betting Odds – Thursday Night Basketball

By Dave Golokhov

The Portland Trail Blazers league-high 13-game winning streak is over but they are still one of the league’s hottest teams. They have won 14 of their last 15 games and head to Chicago in attempt to make it 15 out of 16.

The Chicago Bulls, though, have warmed up of late themselves. After firing head coach Scott Skiles, the Bulls have gone 3-1 under new head coach Jim Boylan and have won four of their last five.

Although the Trail Blazers did rip off a nice winning streak, it’s worth noting that only three of those games were on the road. The Blazers are still only a meager 4-10 on the road.

Portland hasn’t won in Chicago over the last three seasons and they failed to cover the spread in their last two trips. The Bulls have won five of the last six in this series and three in a row.

The Bulls are playing on back-to-back nights and are only 1-7 in that role this season. They have only covered the spread in two of 10 non-conference games this season.

NBA Betting Free Pick: Chicago -3.5

The San Antonio Spurs have lost only eight games all season long but five of those losses have come in their last nine games. They’ve been hampered by a slew of key injuries and will try to persevere in Denver on Thursday night.

San Antonio has owned this series. They are 40-14 straight up and 33-19 against the spread in the last 54 meetings with Denver. That includes a 4-1 mark both SU and ATS over the last five games in Denver.

Denver has played the Southwest Division six times this season and has covered a spread only once in those games. They have also failed to cover a spread in two tries when playing after three or more days of rest.

The good news is that the Nuggets are 12-5 in home games and are off a home loss. The key for the Nuggets is to hit triple-figures in scoring. They have scored 100 or more in all but two of their wins and scored less than 100 in all but four of their losses.

NBA Betting Free Pick: Denver -2

Phoenix is through with a long December, as 11 of their 17 games were on the road. They get a much easier task to start the season.

The Suns host the Supersonics on Thursday and Kevin Durant and Chris Wilcox will be out.

The Sonics have faced 14 teams with a winning record but have won only once.

They’ve also only won one game in 11 tries against teams that average 99 points or more per game. The good news, though, is that the Sonics have covered in eight of those 12 contests.

Both teams usually end up with a high team score but not many of their games have gone over. The high scoring Suns have gone OVER in only 16 of their 31 contests. The OVER is 1-5 when the Sonics play the Pacific division and the OVER is 0-3 in the Suns three contests against the Northwest division. Three of the last four meetings between these two teams in Phoenix has also gone under.

NBA Betting Free Pick: Phoenix -14

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