AC TITTICOCK'S WEEKLY FREE NBA BASKETBALL PICKS AND WINNERS

Five letters, V-E-G-A-S. That’s right I will be headed to Vegas this weekend along with Wagercom.com’s own Jiggy Doughnuts and College Football prognosticator, DJ. It promises to be a weekend of strippers, gambling, strippers, betting on the NBA, strippers, betting on college hoops, strippers, drinking, and I think there will be some strippers. As the saying goes, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, unless of course it’s gonorrhea and in that case, it leaves Vegas with you.

But what a great time to be in the city of bright lights and strippers as we will be watching the NCAA selection show live from one of the sports books. It doesn’t get any better than that, oh wait, it does. How does it get better? By cleaning up in the sports book on my NBA picks. I will be betting heavily on Saturday on my picks, so read up and make money with me.

As for the NBA, I went to the Bulls-Sixers game last week and watched the end of the game from the floor, right next to the Bulls bench. Great view of the action and insight into the psyche of the Bulls, a truly terrible team symptomatic of the whole NBA. First of all, Eddy Curry is huge. His hand is the size of my torso, seriously. He is also a beast but has no work ethic, is out of shape, and apparently doesn’t like to rebound. Curry had 20 points in the first half and was just dominant. Every time he caught the ball in the lane he turned for a soft little 5 foot jump hook. A devastating move, but when the second half rolled around, he was out of gas and had only 4 more points. Just disgraceful. Also, Jamal Crawford is the worst point guard and potentially player in the NBA. He puts his head down and shoots every time. He was about 3 of 90 from the floor and launched several threes from about 47 feet behind the arc. When he wasn’t missing shots or wide open teammates, he was turning the ball over. I don’t understand why Skiles wasn’t yelling at him or pulling him. He showed no feel for the game and no ability to make his teammates better. I would not want him on my team and I am currently rooting for Ricky “through the legs” Davis. One question, if Tyson Chandler falls in the woods, does he make a sound? Chandler was non-existent except for the tattoo’s on his arms, he is so tall it looks like he had the entire novel War and Peace detailed on his biceps. Weird stuff.

On the bright side for the Bulls, Kirk Hinrich is a player. He made the extra pass every time to wide open Bulls teammates who were so surprised, they usually dropped the passes. I was not a Hinrich fan when he was at Kansas, but I was very very surprised by his play in person. If he were on the Kings, he would be the story of the NBA season, and I am not making that up. He can flat out play. The other entertaining part of the game was watching Bulls Assistant Pete Myers. He was up yelling the whole game, most of the time just to yell. What a nut job. He made Scott Skiles seem sedated.

Oh yeah, I’d like to thank the Bulls for blowing a 6 point lead in the fourth quarter and not only blowing the lead but then losing by more than 6 and costing me money. I had the Bulls +6, a bet that was looking pretty safe when they were up 6 with 8 minutes to go but then they collapsed and lost by 9, outscored by 15 in 8 minutes. I hate the Bulls, I hate Scott Skiles, and I can’t believe they were playing 95 year old Kendall Gill in crunch time. Ugh.

On to the free NBA picks for Friday:

LA Clippers +9.5 at Memphis:

Clippers lose, but not by 9.5. Brand and Maggette are not going to let this be a blow out.

Denver at Milwaukee -4.5:

The Bucks don’t lose at home, Denver doesn’t win anymore. Might be some reversion to the mean but the Bucks front court is too strong for the Nuggets.

Chicago at New Jersey -11.5:

I never give more than 10 points but Kidd is back and read above.

Bonus game:

Lakers +3 at Minnesota:

Hate to do it but Shaq is big and the Wolves are not playing well. I still like the Wolves longterm but Shaq is hungry.