Chicago Bulls @ Philadelphia 76ers
United States: NBA Basketball Eastern Conference Play Off First Round
Thursday 10 May 2012 - Tip Off 7pm ET
Midnight (British Standard Time)

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Preview

The Chicago Bulls may be the Number 1 seeds in the Eastern Conference, but injuries have really put pay to their chances of reaching the Conference Finals for a second year in succession. However, they have shown some real fight in game 5 of this series to bring it back to Philadelphia and a chance to level at 3-3 before a decider in the Windy City.

Chicago came out and played with a bunch of emotion to take game 5 in front of their own fans and bring the series back to 3-2. It is funny how much the series has changed in the last couple of weeks as I am sure many fans would have looked at game 5 as the closing game for the Bulls.

Since the series has began, the Bulls have lost Derrick Rose with a devastating ACL injury, been missing Joakim Noah for the last couple of games and now look like they will be using a hobbled Taj Gibson. Both Noah and Gibson have been listed as day-to-day, but both are likely to be limited if they do suit up.

Chicago finally got a big game out of Luol Deng who 24 points as well as having 8 rebounds, but it was thanks to the defence coming up very big that they won the game as they held the 76ers to just 69 points.

Doug Collins was not at all happy with that scoring output as his team have really made it hard for themselves from the field despite winning three games in a row in the series before that loss. In fact, they have been held to 40% of fewer from the field in the last 4 games as they struggle to get out of their 'random offense'.

Collins will look for his team to get more out of their transitional game, while he wants them to execute their offensive game plans much more fluidly than they have so far. These struggles have also given the Bulls plenty of confidence that they can still force a game 7, despite being very short-handed coming into the game.

Head to Head

The season series between these teams is now tied at 4-4 after the Bulls won the last game of this First Round series.

While they have split the season series straight up, they have also split the series 4-4 against the spread.

Philadelphia have improved to 6-2 at home in the last 8 of the series between the teams, going 5-3 against the spread in those games.

Other Interesting Trends

Philadelphia are just 2-5 against the spread in their last 7 games as the home favourite of between 0.5 and 4.5 points.

Chicago have lost their last 4 games against the spread as the road underdog.

They are 1-6 against the spread in their last 7 games against a team with a winning record at home.

Prediction

I am going to back the Philadelphia 76ers to close out the series in this one for the following reasons:

First, the Bulls are really beat up as a team in terms of injuries and managed to take game 5 with the emotion of the building- that won't be the case in a loud Philadelphia building looking for their first Play Off series win since 2003.

Second, as I said in game 3, Chicago have really struggled on the road against Philadelphia in recent meetings, including those when Derrick Rose was in the line up, so the home side should be plenty confident they can secure the series now.

Third, Philadelphia also have the deeper bench and could take advantage of the short-handed Bulls as long as they can get their offensive game plans keyed in.

The Pick :

Philadelphia 76ers 88-83 Chicago Bulls

FIXED ODDS BETTING :

I'll take the Philadelphia 76ers -3 Points @ 2.00