The Chicago Bulls host the Portland Trail Blazers on Saturday night in a matchup that draws a lot of attention. Both sides are hoping to reach the playoffs, and right now, they are in a fierce race for that postseason spot. Portland has lots of troubles due to injured players and is coming to Illinois following a two-game losing skid. On the other side, the Bulls were quite solid, but their positive stretch was interrupted with two losses at home, though the opponents in those events were title contenders.
Trail Blazers at Bulls Schedule
- Where: United Center, Chicago, Illinois
- When: Saturday, January 30, 8 pm ET
- How to Watch: NBC NW
Trail Blazers at Bulls Odds
| Team | Spread | Total |
|---|---|---|
| Blazers | TBA | TBA |
| Bulls | TBA | TBA |
Trail Blazers at Bulls Preview
All Eyes on Lillard
Without several important players, the Trail Blazers need to see Damian Lillard posting some unreal numbers, otherwise, they won’t win. They lost to Thunder and the Rockets in the past few days, mainly because Lillard had average scoring numbers. Even though Dame posted 30+ points, that wasn’t enough.
With CJ McCollum out, as well as Jusuf Nurkic, Robert Covington, Derrick Jones Jr , he needs to be better, and the same goes for all other players, especially Carmelo Anthony, whose 6 points against the Rockets, with 3-for-15 shooting, aren’t even worth mentioning.
Tight loss against the Rockets, 104-101, came with all these minuses, and imagine if the Blazers would play just a little bit better. No doubt, they would be a very competitive unit, regardless of the injuries or the opponent.
Bulls Still Need to Grow
The six-time NBA champs had three victories in a row before meeting the Boston Celtics and the LA Lakers, to whom they lost in the lastest two events. Even though Billy Donovan’s side showed a lot of potentials, they are still incapable of endangering better teams in the league.
Still, that doesn’t mean that Chicago can’t reach the playoffs. This young team has one of the best scorers in the league, Zach LaVine, who drops 27 points per night, and is slowly becoming one of the toughest players to guard in the NBA.
Coby White opened the season a bit slower than expected. The sophomore, who was superb during his rookie year, averages just 15.2 points per night with 5.6 assists, while shooting only 40% from the field. White’s influence on the Bulls’ game is enormous, and if he manages to improve and reach the standards from the last campaign, we just might see Chicago above .500 pretty soon.
Trail Blazers at Bulls Head to Head
The first match of the year saw the Bulls beating the Blazers in Portland, 111-108. White scored 21 points for the guests, and his team had seven players with a double-digit number of buckets.
Trail Blazers at Bulls Pick and Prediction
This will be a tough one for picking the winner, but the situation is much better when it comes to the total number of points. Portland is primarily an attacking crew, and the Bulls, on the other side, don’t have some shinny defenders as well. Also, the fact that the guests are coming to Chicago without several players in rotation suggests that they don’t have the capacity to play some extraordinary defense, especially when all the active players aren’t good on that side of the court. Because of that, we should see at least 220 points in this even, which would be our pick here.
