The Cavs will be trying to clinch the #1 seed in the East with a win. The Bulls are in 9th place and will be a play-in team, but they are one game behind Atlanta and one ahead of Miami so home court advantage is still up for grabs.
Donovan Mitchell will sit out this one after suffering a mild ankle sprain Monday against the Kings. Mitchell is averaging 33.7 points in three games against the Bulls, by far the highest on the Cavaliers.
The Bulls announced that Lonzo Ball, Coby White, Kevin Huerter, and Tre Jones will miss this game with various injuries. Nikola Vucevic and Josh Giddey are game time decisions. It looks like the Bulls are mailing this one in. Ayo Dosunmu is already out for the season.
White, Vucevic, Giddey, Huerter, Dosunmu, and Jones are their six leading scorers, in that order. If they are all out the highest scorers available to play are C Zach Collins and PF Patrick Williams, both at 8.8 ppg.
The Bulls made a big move at the trade deadline sending Zach LaVine to the Kings in a three-team trade and getting back Zach Collins, Tre Jones, and Kevin Huerter. They were 21-29 when they made the trade and are 15-13 since. However, they are just 13-25 against teams with .500 records or over and many of their recent wins have been against losing teams.
The Bulls are 0-3 against the Cavs with the first two losses coming in November and the last one on March 4 by a 139-117 score at home. That was the low point of the season as they won the next game and are 12-4 since then. The Bulls did not have Vucevic, Giddey, or Lonzo Ball that night so they were very short-handed. Mobley did not play for the Cavs.
Josh Giddey is doing everything for them with a line of 15/8/7. Rookie Matas Buzelis, 20, had 17 points and 7 rebounds in the last game against the Cavs. Vucevic averages 19 points and 10 rebounds. He has a similar game to Sabonis of the Kings, who put 27 points on the Cavs Monday. They are both 6’10” and very skilled offensively. Hopefully neither Giddey nor Vucevic will play.
I’m not going to review the stats because with four starters and rotation players out and possibly two more the stats are meaningless.
This could be one of those games where the opponent sits all their starters and still wins the game. Buzelis is the only guy who has been starting recently that is not on the injury report.
The key will be the intensity (or lack of) that the Cavs bring to the floor Tuesday night.
I didn’t think our energy level was as high as I thought it would be, considering we have the first seed at stake,” Atkinson said pointedly Sunday night. “[The Kings] energy and intensity level was higher. I think we did pick it up a bit, but a little surprised we weren’t more on point. We made a lot of mistakes, quite honestly, defensively.”
They had 37 points off of our turnovers. It’s really self-inflicted stuff. - Donovan Mitchell after the loss to the Kings
I want to see the Cavs come out with their foot to the floor and put up 70 in the first half and then bury the Bulls in the 3rd quarter, but I don’t know what to expect from this team anymore. At least they have Ty Jerome and Dean Wade back so Kenny will have all his options, except Spida.
Even if Vucevic and Giddey can play I don’t know how the Bulls can compete without Coby White, who averaged almost 28 ppg in March, Kevin Huerter, who is averaging 13 ppg, and Tre Jones, averaging 11.5. Even if a starting lineup of Vucevic, Giddey, Buzelis, Patrick Williams, and Dalen Terry could hang with the Cavs for a while they still have no bench.
Injury Report
CLEVELAND
Donovan Mitchell - OUT (ankle)
CHICAGO
Ayo Dosunmu - OUT (shoulder)
Coby White - OUT (rest)
Tre Jones - OUT (foot)
Kevin Huerter - OUT (neck)
Lonzo Ball - OUT (wrist)
Josh Giddey - QUESTIONABLE (arm)
Nikola Vucevic - QUESTIONABLE (rest)