NBA betting heavily favors Cleveland on Monday as they host the Chicago Bulls in Game 2 of their playoff series. The Cavaliers are expected to win this basketball betting series and they have been a very good home team this season. NBA betting odds point to the Cavaliers in this game on Monday that can be seen on TNT. Even though Cleveland is favored and they have LeBron James, the Bulls have some trends that give them a chance to at least cover this game on Monday. Before this series began, the Bulls were 4-0 ATS in their last 4 games as a road underdog. Chicago had also done well against the Central Division as they were 8-3 ATS in their last 11 games. The one problem for Chicago in this series is that they are 3-10 ATS in the last 13 meetings in Cleveland.
Cleveland rested a lot of their players down the stretch since they already had home court advantage and the top seed wrapped up. That skews their numbers a bit. Before this series started the Cavaliers were 19-7-1 ATS in their last 27 playoff games as a favorite. If you look back at their last ten regular season games they were just 2-8 ATS. At home they had struggled laying points as they were 1-4 ATS in their last 5 games as a home favorite in basketball betting.
Cleveland plays very good defense and Chicago can also step up the defense at times so this could be a low scoring game. 10 of the last 13 Chicago games against the Eastern Conference have gone under. On the road, 9 of their last 13 games have gone under. Cleveland has gone under in 13 of their last 19 games against the Central Division. Before this series began, four of the last five games between the two teams had gone under the total.
In the regular season the Bulls were 22-19 against the NBA betting odds on the road. They have some players who can make an impact include Derrick Rose. To be competitive in this series against Cleveland they are going to need other players like Kirk Hinrich and Luol Deng to step up as well.
Cleveland was only 16-25 vs. the point spread at home this season so while they almost always win their home games they don’t always cover the number.