Chicago Bulls Visit Washington Wizards In Matchup Of Also-Rans

There’s no doubt that late season NBA is an especially ugly exercise. It’s essential to be comfortable with taking big points with bad teams as that is the most consistent winning concept in the final days of the regular season. It may seem counter intuitive, but at this stage of the game you’ll often find more motivation–individual and collective–on bottom feeders than you will on playoff bound squads.

Neither of these teams are anywhere near the playoffs and the motivation in a ‘bad vs. bad’ game is more difficult to assess. The Washington Wizards are definitely the better on these two sides ‘on paper’ and they would be going to the playoffs had they been able to play all of their games at home. The Wizards have a better home record at 21-16 SU/22-14-1 ATS than both the Miami Heat (18-21) and the Brooklyn Nets (22-17) who are both playoff qualified as of this writing. Washington’s problem is that they have to play 50% of their games on the road where they’ve been miserable. The Wiz are 10-30 SU/ 14-25-1 ATS on the road giving them the 5th worst road record in the league. The only teams with a worse record away from home are Cleveland, New York, Dallas and Phoenix–the absolute bottom feeders of the NBA this season.

The Chicago Bulls were just a wretched team this season. As bad as Cleveland and the New York Knicks have been, the Bulls aren’t much better. They’re currently 2 games up on Cleveland and 5.5 games up on the Knicks. The Bulls have been horrible both at home (9-30 SU) and on the road (12-27 SU). Their road performance is interesting, however, in that despite that awful record away from home they’ve been a profitable pointspread play at 20-17-1 ATS. When you see a dichotomy like this there are two explanations–one is that a team is more competitive in a given situation than the marketplace perceives. The Atlanta Hawks are an example of a road team that exerts a better effort away from home than the ‘public’ thinks. The other scenario is likely the one at play here–a team is so bad and so reviled by the betting public that the bookmaker has to adjust their price beyond actual line value to get any interest at all.

Washington has been a double digit favorite exactly twice this season–both at home and both against the Cleveland Cavaliers. The won and covered both games. In their previous meeting against the Bulls at home, the Wizards were a -4.5 home favorite and lost outright 101-92. That was part of a brutal late December run where the Wizards went 3-9 SU/1-11 ATS. Washington has lost 7 of 10 SU heading into this matchup but are 5-5 ATS. They’ve been an underdog or a very small favorite every time out. Their biggest chalk role during this run? Favored by -4.5 at Chicago on March 20. Result of the game? Bulls win outright 126-120.

Chicago has lost 4 straight going 1-3 ATS and has had a brutal late season run going 4-11 SU/6-9 ATS in the month of March. They started the month of April on a dubious note, losing 113-105 to the Knicks at Madison Square Garden. It was only the second win for New York in the past 16 games and only the 4th pointspread cover in that stretch. The Bulls also have injury issues with Zach LaVine out for this game and Kris Dunn and Otto Porter, Jr. both listed as ‘doubtful’. The Bulls will be without Trevor Ariza who has missed the last three games with a groin injury and given Washington’s situation has been shut down for the year.

There’s a lot of uncertainty around the Wizards’ franchise at the moment in wake of yesterday’s firing of longtime team president Ernie Grunfeld. Somehow Grunfeld kept his job for over 15 seasons despite a truly abysmal performance in personnel decisions and a Wiz team that was mediocre at best on the court. If a tangible sign that the Wizards were just ‘playing out the string’ was needed here it is. Chicago has covered 7 of 10 against the Wizards and will have a young lineup that should play with enthusiasm. Simply put, the Wizards have no business being a -11 point favorite against anyone and particularly one that has covered 6 of the last 8 meetings head to head. Hold your nose and take the Bulls plus the points.

BET CHICAGO BULLS +11 OVER WASHINGTON WIZARDS