Chicago Bulls vs. Milwaukee Bucks Preview and thread: can the duds on National TV stop?

Chicago Bulls (28-15) vs. Milwaukee Bucks (28-19)

In 1984, the NBA gods gifted the Chicago Bulls Michael Jordan.

...and since 1998 when he left Chicago, the NBA gods have seemingly tried to compensate for giving the Bulls Jordan by giving the team just comically bad injury luck anytime the team starts to sniff success again.

From Derrick Rose to Joakim Noah to Luol Deng almost dying from a spinal tap to everybody on the team basically getting COVID-19 this season to Zach LaVine’s current knee injury it always feels like groundhog day here in Chicago on the injury front.

This season especially we can’t celebrate anything without getting bad news in the injury department. The latest bombshell comes from Lonzo Ball. Meniscus is basically a swear word in Chicago at this point given the history of key players suffering this type of injury.

Looking at this season, first Patrick Williams barely got to play this year because he got injured so early into the season. Then the Bulls had a COVID-19 surge tear through almost their entire roster, they basically have no power forward depth right now because guys keep on getting injured, and key players like Lonzo Ball, Alex Caruso and Zach LaVine have all been injured.

You have all these factors working against the Bulls and you look up at the standings and they are still tied for the best record in the Eastern Conference. A less resilient team would have certainly folded under the weight of all these trials and tribulations, but not your Chicago Bulls. So that is something to be proud of regardless of how the rest of the season unfolds.

In the short term, the Bulls are preoccupied with the Milwaukee Bucks. In a scheduling quirk, this will be the first matchup between the two rivals even though it’s already mid-January.

The defending champs have kind of meandered their way to the Eastern Conference’s fourth best record. They were 8-8 to start the season, had a six game winning streak at the end of December to begin crawling up the standings, but have now lost six of their last ten games. But like the Bulls, they have also had their share of injury and COVID issues this year, and when their stars play (like tonight) they are tough:

Injury Report:

No change for the Bulls, we’ll have to see if Caruso is off his minutes restriction. But LaVine and Green are still out.

For the Bucks, just Brook Lopez remains out as he has barely played all year due to back surgery.

Game Time: 7pm, ESPN