The Chicago Bulls look to avenge Friday’s loss to the Washington Wizards as they head to the United Center for their home-opener.
The 1-1 Chicago Bulls find themselves as betting underdogs for the second consecutive evening as they host the 1-0 Cleveland Cavaliers in their home-opener. Zach LaVine aims to make his season debut and following last night’s inconsistent offensive output, his presence is more than welcome. Time will tell if he will face knee issues throughout the season, and as we have seen, Demar Derozan can only do so much even when he’s scoring at an all-star level.
We grabbed the over on Vucevic’s points last night, but with a fairly unclear picture of what the Chicago Bulls scoring output will look like in LaVine’s return, I’ll avoid any point totals and head to a similar play from night one in hopes to improve us to 3-0 on the season. Let’s get a bounce back win in the standings for our Bulls, and let’s keep the streak alive on the bet slips!
2022 Bulls Best Bet Record: (2-0)
Ayo Dosunmu Over 3.5 Assists (Sportsbook odds may vary)
The fan favorite, Ayo Dosunmu, has inherited a huge role to open the season in Lonzo Ball’s absence, and despite LaVine’s return to the lineup tonight, Dosunmu will remain in the starting lineup and his minutes should remain significant.
Through two games, Ayo has racked up over 30 minutes in each game, and while his box score output in last night’s loss wasn’t eye opening, I think we see the opportunities return to the volume that was seen in night one where he scored 17 points and 4 assists. With LaVine’s scoring output returning to the lineup, I don’t necessarily see the same scoring opportunities as the Miami game, but I do believe we will see the playmaking opportunities grow to a higher level.
Cleveland is an interesting matchup to break down because the inside presence of Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen are nothing to laugh at, however, the perimeter defenders do not command the same respect. For the Chicago Bulls to have success tonight, they will need to have strong guard play, and no matter how you shake it, Ayo should have plenty of opportunities to find teammates for open looks.
I’ll bring up the same point that I made for Ayo’s assist total on night one to illustrate the value that we have here again. Most non-star players will have their prop totals set right around their season average, or in this case early in the year, last year’s totals.
If you look at Ayo’s assist per game numbers from last season, it is right around the 3.5 number, giving you by the blind-eye a relative tossup to make a bet. If you dig deeper, we have the luxury of Dosunmu being a rare case where we have almost a complete 50/50 sample size of starting minutes and bench minutes. Last year in 40 games as a starter, Ayo averaged 5.5 assists per game, and as long as they continue to reflect these numbers to his overall averages from last year, we will find an edge, and especially in a game where I’d argue his playmaking could be on full display.
To close things out, in four games against the Cleveland Cavaliers last season, all in a starting role, Dosunmu averaged 4.75 assists, aiding the Bulls to a 3-1 record over Cleveland. I love Dosunmu to have a serious impact tonight, and honestly could prove to be the x-factor to winning or losing this contest. I’m going to take a swing on him to hit a couple of threes as well at some serious plus-money, but the value is all over his assist total tonight.
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