Oklahoma City Thunder vs. Chicago Bulls - 12/19/13

Chicago Bulls (9-14) at Oklahoma City Thunder (20-4)

NBA Basketball: Thursday, December 19, 2013 at 8:00 pm (Chesapeake Energy Arena)

The Line: Oklahoma City Thunder -13 -- Over/Under: 192 See the Latest Odds

TV:

Kevin Durant and the Oklahoma City Thunder collide with the reeling Chicago Bulls on Thursday night TNT.

Head to head, the Bulls are 1-4 ATS in the last 5 meetings while the home team is 4-1 ATS in the last 5 meetings and the favorite is 5-0 ATS in the last 5 meetings. The Thunder are 6-2 ATS in their last 8 home games, 15-7 ATS in their last 22 home games vs. a team with a road winning % of less than .400 and 6-1 ATS in their last 7 games overall. The Bulls on the other hand are 0-4 ATS in their last 4 road games, 1-4 ATS in their last 5 games following a SU loss of more than 10 points and 8-20 ATS in their last 28 games overall.

Oklahoma City and Chicago enter tonight's game at opposite ends of the spectrum as the Thunder are currently riding a seven-game winning streak and with Portland going down last night, are the form team of the competition. Meanwhile, the Bulls have been just about the worst team in the NBA since the middle of last month as they have lost 12 of their last 15 are coming off a 109-94 defeat in Houston last night.

While going down by 15 points isn't anything to celebrate, Chicago actually had their best offensive game for a while against the Rockets on Wednesday night, scoring 94 points on 48 percent shooting. The Bulls had been held to an average of just 79.5 point during their previous six games, which is beyond bad for today's NBA standards. One positive was the play of Jimmy Butler, who led his team in scoring with 20 points in just his second game back from injury.

I'm not saying it's going to happen again, but the last time these two met in Oklahoma City last season, the Thunder ran way with a 102-72 victory. If we got that exact same score-line tonight, I wouldn't be surprised in the least because this Bulls team just can't get anything going on offense lately, failing to score over 79 points in four of their last seven contests. Having Jimmy Butler back helps a lot, but I could just see this OKC squad getting an early lead and then running away with things. The Thunder took their foot off the gas in their last home game against Orlando, but remember their previous two victories over Indiana and Los Angeles (Lakers) came by 24 points each....

Dan’s Pick: Oklahoma City -13

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