The New York Knicks continued their uninspiring run of basketball in barely beating the NBA's worst team last night — and now they have to contend with one of the league's best in visiting the Chicago Bulls tonight.
Chicago has won five of its last seven games and has returned home after a five-game West Coast road swing. The Bulls, who are fourth in the NBA with an 11-5 record, are currently sitting as 5-point NBA betting favorites tonight.
Here are our best free NBA picks and predictions for Knicks vs. Bulls on Sunday, November 21.
Knicks vs Bulls odds
Odds via the Covers Line, an average comprised of odds from multiple sportsbooks.
The line opened at Chicago -5 and still sits there at the time of writing, while the total has moved from 208.5 up to 211. Use the live odds widget above to track any future line movements right until tip-off and be sure to check out the full NBA odds before betting to ensure you get the best number.
Knicks vs Bulls predictions
Predictions made on 11/21/2021 at 11:38 a.m. ET.
Click on each prediction to jump to the full analysis.
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Knicks vs Bulls game info
• Location: United Center, Chicago, IL
• Date: Sunday, November 21, 2021
• Tip-off: 8:00 p.m. ET
• TV: NBC Sports Chicago, MSG
Knicks vs Bulls betting preview
Injuries
Knicks: Kemba Walker G (Questionable), Taj Gibson C (Questionable), Mitchell Robinson C (Out), Obi Toppin F (Questionable).
Bulls: Nikola Vucevic C (Out), Patrick Williams F (Out), Javonte Green G (Questionable).
Find our latest NBA injury reports.
Betting trend to know
The Under is 5-1 in the last six head-to-head meetings in Chicago. Find more NBA betting trends for Knicks vs. Bulls.
Knicks vs Bulls picks and predictions
Our predictions are compiled from the analysis of the spread and total and are indications of where we are leaning for this game.
Our best bet is the play that we like the most for this game, which we would actually put some of our bankroll behind.
Spread analysis
After a 5-1 start, the Knicks were the talk of the town... but it's been all downhill since, with New York going just 4-6 and needing a fourth-quarter rally to beat Houston last night — a team that is 1-15.
What has been the problem for the Knicks? Well, basically it's been that their starters have been absolutely atrocious. For the season, the Knicks starting five averages 66.9 points per game (26th in the league), while the bench is third with 40.7 ppg. It's been even worse during this nine-game swoon heading into last night's contest, as the NYK starters (generally Kemba Walker, Evan Fournier, R.J. Barrett, Julius Randle, and Mitchell Robinson) have averaged just 59.4 ppg (compared to 42 ppg for the bench), each starter has an average +/- of -17.5, and only five players have had a positive +/- in any one game.
The Knicks starters have constantly dug the team into holes, with the bench mob needing to bail them out — but will that even be possible against the Bulls?
Chicago's starters have been the opposite of New York, in that they've been a dominant unit. The Bulls are second in the NBA with the starters — Lonzo Ball, Alex Caruso, Zach LaVine, DeMar DeRozan, Nik Vucevic — averaging 83.1 ppg, but what's really powering Chicago is how the team gets after it on the defensive end.
The Bulls are in the Top 10 in defensive rating and opponent ppg, powered by hounding perimeter defense from Ball and Caruso and strong interior defending — as Chicago is also eighth in opponent second-chance points, opponent points in the paint, and Top-5 in opponent field goal percentage from 5-14 feet.
Chicago is likely to be without Vucevic (COVID protocols) for the sixth straight game tonight but his absence hasn't slowed the Bulls down as they gave up just 106.4 ppg without their starting center during their five-game road trip, with the outlier being 119 points against (now 14-2) Golden State.
The one place where the Bulls are vulnerable is against 3-point shots — they are 20th in opponent 3FG% and have the fifth-lowest contested 3-point shot percentage — and New York is ninth in 3-point attempts per game, but the Knicks are in the bottom-third of the league in 3-point shooting this month, so it's not exactly a given that they will exploit that Chicago weakness.
What's more reliable is that the Bulls' superior starting unit will bury the struggling starters for the 'Bockers, and we don't see that being a hole the NY bench can dig them out of — especially as tired legs could come into play on the tail end of a back-to-back.
Prediction: Bulls -5 (-110)
Over/Under analysis
This is the second-lowest total the Bulls have seen this season (the lowest being 205.5 in their last game against a Denver team that was basically missing everyone), they average a combined 213.7 points per contest, and Chicago has gone Over tonight's total in eight of their last 10 games.
But (always a classic), as mentioned above, this Bulls defense is tenacious... and the Knicks have seemingly reverted back to looking like the squad we saw last season.
New York started the season as a high-scoring powerhouse, seeing its defense decline from last season plus being 3-pointer happy, but the points have dried up lately.
The Knicks still sit with a combined 214.2 points scored each night, but the Under has actually cashed in eight of their last nine games, including going Under totals of 207 and 211 in two of their last three. New York has only topped 100 points once in its last five — last night against the woeful Rockets — and now having to face a stingy Bulls defense on a back-to-back is certainly not going to provide an offensive spark.
Neither team plays at an overly fast pace (Chicago 14th, New York 23rd), so don't expect a lot of easy points from transition and up-tempo basketball. Both sides will be content to operate in half-court sets and we expect this to fall Under.
One more thing of note: When these two teams played earlier in October, they combined for just 207 points — and that was when the Knicks were clicking on all cylinders offensively.
Prediction: Under 211 (-110)
Best bet
We'd love to have some fancy prop bet to play, but let's be real here: Chicago -5 seems like an absolute steal.
The Bulls are playing very good basketball, while the Knicks look downright awful at the moment. New York also has some key pieces banged up (Obi Toppin, Kemba Walker, and Taj Gibson are all game-time decisions while Mitchell Robinson will not play) which could even further deplete the depth that the Knicks rely on to bail this team out nightly.
The Knicks only avenue to win this game is to catch fire from beyond the arc, but if the shots aren't falling (which they haven't been lately), and the legs start to get heavy in dealing with this Chicago defense (24 hours after having to grind out a win over Houston), New York will just keep chucking triples.
Give us the better, fresher, home team tonight.
Pick: Bulls -5 (-110)
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