Lakers And Bulls Pace Won't Reach The High Total

Lakers vs. Bulls, 8:00 ET

For whatever reason, the scheduling guys in the NBA did us a favor and gave us basketball all day today. I'm not sure if this was a mistake, a test, or something else, but we have games starting at 1:00 ET and going all the way through the remainder of the night. I'll happily take it as we have no baseball, and there is just one football game for the remainder of the season. Tonight, we get a matchup between the Lakers and Bulls taking place in Chicago.

The Lakers are 27-17 for the season and have had a bit of an odd year. There is a ton of talk about how well LeBron James has played this season, and, in fairness, he is having a great campaign. He is having a ridiculously good campaign for being 40 years old. I've undergone an evolution in my James stance. When he first came in, I was definitely a hater. When he went to Miami, I didn't like him because I wanted my Bulls to beat them. I eventually recognized that we are watching one of the best players ever. He is arguably a better statistical player than Michael Jordan, but I'd probably argue I'd rather have Jordan's career. There has been a lot of talk about James this year and how he is hurting the Lakers more than helping them. I don't know that I support it, because I think his style of play can blend in with pretty much any team and roster. Luka Doncic continues to be an elite scorer and playmaker. Defense will always be a shortcoming for him, but he at least somewhat tries. The problem could be that they are without Austin Reaves who started with a career year and seems like he could be making major strides this season. 

(Jerome Miron-Imagn Images)

The Bulls are somehow back above .500. While that's a good sign for now, do we really expect this team to be above .500 by the end of the year? 42 wins seems like it would be the ceiling for this team, especially considering most of the talk is that the team will likely trade anyone not named Josh Giddey and Matas Buzelis. Still, there have been some very impressive stretches from this club this year. They are currently on a four game winning streak, but trending toward a loss. They barely escaped with a win over the Timberwolves on the 22nd, and then on Saturday on Derrick Rose's jersey retirement night, they won by three. That was a game I wish I would've played more because most teams tend to win in games like that. A quick note - Rose was electric while playing, but I don't know that he deserves to have his jersey retired. He was the only hope the Bulls really had since Jordan retired, but he never won anything for the team. Most of his lore now is about what would've been instead of what he actually did. I'm happy for him, but not really sure that it was necessary. In any case, the Bulls won the game over the Celtics, hitting a three with about 0.2 seconds remaining and giving them the victory. 

Let's look at the situational side of this game. The Lakers are on a very long road trip. This is game four of eight. They are also coming off a game where they had some emotional ties as they beat Dallas 116-110. The Mavericks were winning late before the Lakers closed the game strong. The Bulls are coming off a major win over the Celtics on a big night. They leave Chicago for a one-game trip, then play the Heat three games in a row, which is really odd. The Bulls are playing well at the moment, but the key here should be whichever team decides to play defense. The total seems a bit too high for a game with the Lakers. Luka likes to walk the ball up and back down his defender. The Bulls want to run a bit, but will likely need to slow pace a little bit as the Lakers defensive scheme doesn't allow too many transition buckets - at least when they are playing well. Most games from the Lakers haven't even been close to over 235.5, and I don't think this one will be either. Give me the under.

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