2012 Playoffs : 32-24-2 +100.87 units
2-1-0 last night, lost the Knicks by 1/2 point to ruin the clean sweep. Hit the two big plays though, so overall a good night.
Chicago Bulls +3.5 (12 units to win 11.43)
Chicago Bulls +150 (6 units to win 9.00)
Philly has the #1 seed in the Eastern Conference in a very vulnerable position. Down 3-2 and needing a road victory to fend off elimination. Obviously Rose is out and I'm assuming Noah is out as well. This is more a play against the Sixers than it is on backing the Bulls. That might not make sense, but I still firmly believe that if both teams show up, the better team will win, and for me, despite the injuries, that's the Chicago Bulls. That being said, I'm somewhat skeptical of how the Sixers come out in Game 6. The Bulls problems have clearly been on the offensive end, but I don't think we have seen the best effort from the Bulls, not even close. Deng, Boozer and Rip have all been inconsistent at best, Korver's impact has for the most part been non-existent and the PG combo of Watson and Lucas has been spotty at best. Deng finally got going in Game 5, Boozer has posted three straight double doubles and Rip was relevant earlier in the series, but has sicne faded. If they get meaningful production from two of these guys and solid contributions from the bench and the PGs, the Bulls will win this game and force a Game 7 back in Chicago.
Quite a big "if" for sure, but one thing the Bulls have done well is play real good defense. The Sixers 3-2 advantage has more to do with timely scoring than it has to do with consistent/effective scoring. In the series to this point, the Sizers are shooting 40.8% from the field, 21.5% from three point range and 75.3% from the FT line. Some pretty shotty numbers. The Sixers were exceptional offensively in Game 2, but pouring over the box scores for this series and that seems like an outlier. In the other four games, the Sixers shot less than 40% from the field, less than 27% from 3Pt and less than 80% from the line in each one. Taking out the Game 2 stats, the Sixers shooting %'s are as follows:
FG: 36% (115-316)
3Pt: 16.9% (9-53)
FT: 74.7% (89-119)
Just some downright awful shooting numbers, yet somehow Philly is still in the driver's seat with a chance to send the # 1 seed to the golf course. The stat that really stands out for me is the % of points Philly is getting from the FT line. Here is the breakdown of % of points Philly has got from the FT line in all five games
Game 1: 26.37%
Game 2: 11.01%
Game 3: 32.91%
Game 4: 24.72%
Game 5: 24.64%
Overall, they have scored 23.1% of their points on foul shots. Taking out Game 2, that number goes up to 27.1%. That is more than a 1/4 of their points from the charity stripe. During the regular season, the Sixers scored 14% of their points from the FT line. While one might not this as a positive that the Sixers are getting to the line, which it is, but what happens when they don't get to the line as much. That happened in Game 2, but it didn't matter because the Sixers shot 58% (FG) and 41% (3Pt). If they fail to get to the line a lot in Game 6, the Sixers will likely need to shoot at these levels to win. That might be a tough task the way the Bulls are playing defense. It's a dangerous gameplan to rely so heavily on FT scoring because when that goes away, you need to shoot lights out. And outside of Game 2, the Sixers have shot wuite the opposite from the field.