The Cleveland Cavaliers will welcome the Chicago Bulls into the Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse for their fourth game of the season as they look to get back to .500. Let’s take a look at which team will cover the spread.
The Cleveland Cavaliers have been somewhat surprising this season as they have been fairly competitive in each of their three games, even knocking off the Indiana Pacers in the Cavs’ home opener.
The 129-112 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks on Monday night does not indicate how close that game truly was for the majority of the contest. The Bucks used a monstrous fourth-quarter run that included a barrage of three-pointers to open that contest up after the Cavs had cut the lead to just five with less than 10 minutes to go.
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The Cavs, and Tristan Thompson, in particular, did an excellent job of somewhat limiting the reigning MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo. Antetokounmpo finished the night with a very pedestrian stat line for his standards. According to ESPN’s box score he made just five of 15 shots for 14 points, he corralled 10 rebounds and dished out seven assists.
In fact, the Cavaliers did such a good job on Antetokounmpo, that he wasn’t even a factor in the Bucks’ fourth-quarter run. It was the role players that stepped up, as well as Khris Middleton.
The Cavaliers have shown some excellent progress from last year and have the look of a team that could cause other teams some headaches this season. They play hard and have defended fairly well. In their previous two games, prior to the Bucks game, they didn’t give up 100 points. They held the Magic to 94 in a loss and the Pacers to 99 in a win.
Through three games, the Cavaliers are 1-1 against the Central division. They have their third division contest in their first four games tonight against the Chicago Bulls.
The spread for this contest, according to the Action Network, opened with the Cavs as a one-point underdog. However, with 79% of the money coming in on the Bulls to cover, the line has moved a point and the Cavs are now a two-point underdog.
The Cavaliers will have to contain the potentially explosive offense that consists of Zach LaVine, who is averaging 21.3 points on 45.1% shooting according to Basketball-Reference, so far this season.
The Bulls also employ Lauri Markkanen, who can also get scorching hot from the field. Through four games he has averaged 17.8 points and 10.3 rebounds according to Basketball-Reference. However, he has only knocked in 39.7% of his field-goal attempts to this point.
If the Cavaliers can at least make life difficult on those two, they will have an excellent chance to not only cover the spread but win the game outright.
Perhaps the biggest key in determining the outcome of this game is going to be on the glass. According to NBA.com, both of these teams are in the upper tier in regards to offensive rebounding.
The Bulls are currently averaging 12.3 offensive rebounds per game which is good for seventh in the NBA. The Cavaliers are not far off of that pace as they average 10.7 offensive rebounds per game, which ties them for eleventh.
The difference in these two teams rebounding abilities, however, comes on the defensive end. Again, according to NBA.com, the Cavaliers lead the NBA in defensive rebound percentage at 79.6%. The Bulls, meanwhile, are next to last in the league at 66.7%.
The bet – Cleveland Cavaliers – +2
This is virtually a pick ’em game. The Bulls have disappointed slightly in the early going this season as most had them taking the next step in their rebuild with LaVine, Markkanen, Wendell Carter Jr., Otto Porter, and Coby White. They were expecting to make a push for a playoff spot.
The season is still early, so that could certainly still happen, but the early returns have been poor. They need to improve their defensive rebounding or it will cost them a successful season.
The Cavs, on the other hand, are slightly exceeding expectations with how competitive they’ve been, against pretty solid competition up to this point. The Cavs will cover this spread if they continue to hit the glass and can limit one or both of LaVine and Markkanen.
However, they can’t let what happened in Milwaukee, happen tonight. They limited the Bucks star but allowed the others to beat them. They need to be able to both limit LaVine and Markkanen, but also limit the role players.
The Cavs are currently 2-1 against the spread this season. Expect them to get that to 3-1 due to winning the rebounding battle.