NBA Betting Preview: Chicago Bulls vs. San Antonio Spurs Odds, Analysis

The San Antonio Spurs (54-10) are chasing the Golden State Warriors in many ways this season, and earning a victory Thursday against the Chicago Bulls (32-30) would tie them for the third-longest regular-season home winning streak in NBA history.

San Antonio actually has more home wins than Golden State this year, going 30-0 straight up and 20-10 against the spread heading into this matchup against a Chicago team that has not won away from home since February 3 against the Sacramento Kings.

The Warriors are 28-0 at home and currently hold the league record with 46 consecutive wins there in the regular season after beating the Utah Jazz on Wednesday. However, the Spurs are also much better defensively than the defending NBA champs and lead the NBA in scoring margin at plus-12.4 points per game.

That could be important considering the point spread in San Antonio's matchup with Chicago at sportsbooks monitored by Odds Shark.

The Spurs are coming off a 116-91 road victory against the Minnesota Timberwolves as 9.5-point favorites Tuesday, a game they played without Tony Parker, Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and head coach Gregg Popovich due to a personal matter.

It didn't matter because LaMarcus Aldridge scored a game-high 29 points and grabbed seven rebounds, with San Antonio shooting 55.3 percent from the field as a team.

Parker is expected to return from a toe injury that limited him the previous three games before sitting at Minnesota, combining for 10 points and 17 assists during that stretch.

The Bulls have much bigger concerns considering leading scorer Jimmy Butler has experienced soreness in his strained left knee and will miss an unspecified amount of time.

Butler returned to action for one game after missing 11 with the injury, totaling 24 points and 11 rebounds in a 108-100 Chicago win over the Houston Rockets as a 1.5-point home favorite last Saturday.

He proceeded to miss the team's next game, a 100-90 victory against the Milwaukee Bucks as 4.5-point home chalk on Monday.

Without Butler in the lineup, the Bulls figure to have a tough time keeping up with the Spurs, especially since they are also just 11-19 SU and ATS on the road this season.

The teams have split the past six meetings, with the winner covering the spread in the last 20 games between them, according to the Odds Shark NBA Database.