NBA Betting Odds -Bulls at Hawks Game 6

The Chicago Bulls will try to earn their ticket to the final tonight at 8:00 PM ET at the Philips Arena. They will be looking to eliminate the Atlanta Hawks once and for all to battle it out against the Heat who have already punched their ticket to the NBA final.

NBA Betting Odds:

Chicago Bulls -3.5
Atlanta Hawks +3.5
O/U 178.5

The Bulls achieved an important win on game 5 beating the Hawks 95-83 but they failed to cover the spread by half point. Derrick Rose ended the night with 33 points and proved once again that Atlanta has no answer for him.

Rose received help from Carlos Boozer and Keith Bogans offensively but the most impressive contribution came from the bench by Taj Gibson, who came in from nowhere and scored 11 points shooting 5 for 5 from the field.

The Bulls haven’t had the possibility of advancing to a conference final since 1998, the last year of the Michael Jordan era.  Right now, Chicago has the psychological edge and if they play a lose-easygoing game they could potentially end the series tonight considering the Hawks are against the wall facing their first elimination game of these 2011 playoffs.

Take a look at these NBA betting trends:

CHICAGO is:

32-13 ATS off home game
8-3 ATS when the total is between 170 and 179.5 points
3-1 ATS in a road game where the total is between 170 and 179.5 points
14-8 ATS against Southeast division opponents
25-13 ATS when playing against a team with a winning record

ATLANTA is:

4-17 ATS in 2nd Rd Playoff games
3-4 ATS as a home underdog of 3.5 to 6 points
11-13 ATS after a loss by 10 points or more

Also if you are looking to bet the game total keep in mind 10 of 15 games in this series have gone OVER THE TOTAL over the last 3 seasons.

Simmons’ pick: Take the Bulls to cover.