Bulls visit chaotic Nets and Suns host T-Wolves in TNT Tuesday matchups

TNT knows that all you want to do the night after Halloween is to sit on the couch and eat fun-sized candy either left over or stolen from your own trick-or-treaters. And so they’ve given us their third Tuesday night doubleheader of the year, featuring the Chicago Bulls visiting the suddenly coachless Brooklyn Nets, and the Minnesota Timberwolves going on the road to battle the Phoenix Suns.

Jacque Vaughn will coach the Nets tonight, as Steve Nash is probably popping champagne bottles in celebration. though it looks like the Nets’ head coach job will be Ime Udoka’s soon enough. With all the controversy from Kyrie Irving’s antisemitic movie recommendations to Ben Simmons’ battle with the referees to the now-fulfilled “him or me” ultimatum with Kevin Durant and Nash, it’s important to remember that the Brooklyn Nets are still a basketball team, sort of.

Currently, the Nets are 2-5 with the worst defensive rating in the league. By all accounts, the situation has been miserable so far, so the team vibes can’t get any worse after dismissing the head coach. Meanwhile, the banged-up Bulls are 3-4, though Zach LaVine and his sore knee will be playing tonight. So far, they’ve leaned heavily on the scoring of LaVine and DeMar DeRozan, and might be without their 4th-leading scorer, Ayo Dosunmu, who is currently listed as “questionable” - just like all of Brooklyn’s decisions from the last three years!

Meanwhile, the Suns have shaken off their own bad vibes to start the season with a 5-1 record and a league-leading 12.5 net rating. They’ll try to keep it going against the twin towers of Rudy Gobert and Karl-Anthony Towns, who are like a modern-day Parish and McHale, if Kevin McHale was obsessed with Fortnite and Parish gave all of the Celtics reporters a deadly virus by licking microphones. These are two teams with top-7 defenses who rely on their young dynamic shooting guards to pile up points.

DraftKings Odds

The Nets are 1.5-point favorites, probably due to the uncertainty of the Bulls’ injury situation and Vaughn’s freshness - he hasn’t been worn down answering questions about YouTube videos, conspiracy theories, the flatness of the Earth, or vaccine denial like Nash had. The over/under is 232.5, a testament to the scoring power of LaVine and Durant and the turnstile nature of both defenses.

We’re going to look at some same-game parlays for this one, because like Kyrie, we believe everything is connected, man. We don’t think Jacque Vaughn is going to tighten up this defense in his first day, so even though LaVine has a sore knee, we love the parlay of Bulls moneyline + DeMar DeRozan OVER 30 points + Zach Lavine over 20 points. (+650) If you believe the Bulls are going to win this one on the road, that scenario probably involves their two big scorers going off. And the combination of DeMar DeRozan’s amazing ability to get to the line, coupled with Ben Simmons’ incredible propensity for fouls says DeMar is going to light it up.

There’s also a tasty parlay that’s all-scoring - essentially a no-confidence vote in both defenses. If DeRozan and Durant both go over 30 points, and Irving and LaVine go over 20 points, the parlay pays off at (+800). Finally, we like a longshot bet where you parlay DeRozan going over 35 points with DeRozan as the last Bull to score. Essentially, you’re betting on a huge DeRozan game, plus either a game-winning bucket or closing out the game with free throws, which is pretty decent value at (+1500). Sadly you can’t parlay a Nets sideline fight with Andre Drummond missing a pair of free throws, because we would bet the hell out of that.

The Suns are favored by just 3.5 points, possibly because the seven-foot Gobert and Towns should have a large height advantage on Phoenix without center DeAndre Ayton.

For the Timberwolves-Suns same-game parlays, we are sticking with one simple rule. Stay away from any parlay involving Anthony Edwards is a stay-away, and here’s why. Karl-Anthony Towns warned us that Edwards has a terrible diet, and we are going to listen to him.

According to Yelp, Popeye’s Louisiana Kitchen has seven different locations within ten miles of the Footprint Center in Phoenix. According to GrubHub, the city has 24 Popeye’s that offer delivery..If there was a parlay about Ant scoring a three-piece meal, perhaps, but we cannot in good conscience recommend a bet that he scores 30 points, which many of these parlays depend on.

Instead, we are going to look at a defensive-minded parlay. You can get (+4500) when you parlay the Suns giving 3.5 points with Chris Paul and Edwards both getting at least two steals, along with Rudy Gobert and Bismack Biyombo - DeAndre Ayton’s replacement for at least the next week - getting at least two blocks. If you take the Timberwolves +3.5 instead, it’s worth (+5000).

We also love a simple parlay: Chris Paul’s triple-double, coupled with a Suns moneyline win is (+2200). There’s nothing Chris Paul loves more than showing up hotshot young guards like Edwards and D’Anthony Russell, except choking in the playoffs.

Check out DraftKings Sportsbook, the official sportsbook partner of SB Nation.