Los Angeles at Chicago

This line started out at 201 and has jumped to 205! That has something, or everything, to do with how LA is playing of late. In their last five games, they have scored 112.4 ppg (8 points higher than their season average) and allowed 110.2 (10 points higher than their average). All five games have soared over the total. In fact, they are on a 7-0 OVER run right now. But a lot of those points came last game when 288 were scored vs. Washington on Sunday. That was an game that benefited from a 36 point overtime period after the Lakers poured in 46 points in the fourth quarter! Chicago has scored 100+ in 11 of their past 15 games. But, those four sub-100 point performances came in the past six games. Their past two games have gone OVER but the past two seasons the Bulls are 12-3 UNDER following two OVERs. They are not going to want to run with the Lakers and Kobe. They can't win that way. They are going to want to slow it down a bit. The Bulls play stellar defense at home (89.7 points per game) and we look for this game to come under the now inflated total.