I really hate playing the Chicago Bulls. For whatever reason, the Cavs can never crack their defense and Chicago hits all of their jumpers. Maybe we'll see something different tonight, but I wouldn't count on it.
Who? Cleveland Cavaliers (8-27) at Chicago Bulls (18-13)
When? 8:00 PM Eastern
Where? United Center -- Chicago, IL
Where on my eyeballs? Fox Sports Ohio / NBA League Pass
Enemy/brother blog? Blog a Bull
Tickets? Cleveland Cavaliers tickets
Music?
The Cavaliers haven't beaten the Chicago Bulls since the Bronze Age. Can they do it tonight? I'm not very confident. The Bulls' super active defense gives the Cavs fits. Taj Gibson, Joakim Noah, and Luol Deng in particular lead this great defense. They seem to key in on Kyrie Irving and shut off many of the other things that the Cavs try to do offensively. Look for another struggle to score points tonight.
On the other side of the ball, the Bulls really aren't that great of an offensive club. With Derrick Rose out, you'd think that the Cavs would be able to slow down the Chicago offense. Unfortunately, that's not the case. The Cavs do a particularly poor job stopping teams that utilize good ball movement and often fail to close out on shooters. When you consider the fact that the Bulls are a very good rebounding team as well, it's pretty much a nightmare matchup.
If the Cavaliers want to win this game (again, without Anderson Varejao or Daniel Gibson), they'll have to get some crazy monster game from Kyrie Irving as well as somebody else. C.J. Miles or Dion Waiters will have to unexpectedly step up and go crazy. If they don't, then this is probably another sloppy loss.
At this point in the season, I really just want Dion to play well and not take so many goddamn jumpers. Also, I love Tristan Thompson and would like to see him continue to improve. Other than those things, I'm not expecting or hoping for much out of this game.
Fear the Sword's Fearless Prediction
Chicago is going to roll. 105-86.