The No. 10 Chicago Bulls will play host to the visiting No. 9 Miami Heat on Wednesday, April 16 in the second NBA Eastern Conference play-in tournament game of the bracket. The winner will advance to play either the Atlanta Hawks or Miami Heat on Friday night for the eighth seed and the right to battle the Cleveland Cavaliers in the opening round of the playoffs.
Here are three expert player prop picks for this matchup, including an UNDER on a scoring prop for Bulls point guard Coby White (-130) at the United Center.
Preview: Chicago Bulls vs. Miami Heat, 7:30 p.m. ET
Coby White UNDER 22.5 Points vs. Heat (-130 at Sportsbook)
Coby White was knocking on the door of being a top-20 scorer across the Association during the unofficial second half of the 2024-25 regular season. He averaged 24.5 points in 26 games coming out of the All-Star break while shooting 49.4 percent from the field. White also registered seven games of at least 30 points, as well, which had only happened twice in the 48 games prior.
When battling the Heat specifically, the 25-year-old averaged a respectable 20.3 points across three meetings, but he only converted 39.1 percent of his shot attempts and a miserable 20 percent from 3-point range. That falls in line with Miami ranking 11th in points allowed to opposing point guards and seventh in opponent's 3-point efficiency at that position, according to Odds Shark's metrics.
For what it's worth, White also closed out the season with three-straight UNDERs at 22.5 points, but we'll cut him some slack for the finale at Philadelphia in which he saw the floor for just 18 minutes. One of those three games was against the Heat, though, and he missed all five of his 3-point attempts to finish with 18 points in 35 minutes.
Matas Buzelis OVER 11.5 Points vs. Heat (-128 at Sportsbook)
Matas Buzelis' success versus Miami through three games in his rookie year with the Bulls is why we're choosing to take the OVER here, despite the margin for error being smaller than everyone else's as a first-year pro under the bright lights of the play-in tournament.
Excluding the aforementioned game against the 76ers in which Chicago's core saw limited run, Buzelis contributed 16.8 points over his last 11 games to play a large part in his team going 8-3 during that stretch. He drilled 29 of his 59 3-point attempts at a 49.2-percent clip, and scored 10 or more points on all but one occasion.
Most importantly, though, is that Buzelis exceeded an OVER on 11.5 points all three times against the Heat, dropping at least 17 points twice and never finishing with fewer than 13. If that can carry over to Wednesday, not only will bettors be happy with the result, but the Bulls will be in tremendous shape defending their home floor to keep their season alive.
Andrew Wiggins OVER 4.5 Rebounds vs. Bulls (-110 at Sportsbook)
Only the Washington Wizards (49.0) allowed more rebounds at home to opponents than Chicago did at 47 per game. Now Miami was a middle-of-the-pack rebounding team away from the Kaseya Center ranking 17th at 44.4 per contest, but this is still an advantageous number for the visitors to exploit to generate extra looks and fast-break opportunities.
Andrew Wiggins is who we're zeroing in on here, despite the fact that he only averaged 4.2 rebounds in 17 games after coming over from the Golden State Warriors in the Jimmy Butler trade. He'll need five or more rebounds for an OVER, and Wiggins achieved that eight times in his new surroundings, one of which was against the Bulls on April 9 with six in 27 minutes.
He's surely to see a ton of minutes as the Heat's top perimeter defender, and with more minutes means more chances to connect on this wager. Five rebounds isn't asking the world of Wiggins, as he pulled it off in each of his last four showings from March 25 through April 11.
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