Cavaliers Minus Love Face Bulls in Second Round

Two NBA Central division rivals will meet in the Eastern Conference semifinals when the Chicago Bulls play the Cleveland Cavaliers in a best of seven series starting Monday May 4.

Chicago won its best of seven series with the Milwaukee Bucks 4-2 on Thursday night with an impressive display of basketball that embarrassed the Bucks 120-66.

The 54-point win was the biggest in Bulls franchise history.

Now the Bulls will clash with the Cleveland Cavaliers who will be without Kevin Love who had season ending surgery on his shoulder.

With Love not in the lineup and J.R. Smith serving a two-game suspension to start the series, Chicago figures to be a formidable and tough adversary for the Cavs.

During the regular season, Cleveland won the head-to-head series with Chicago 3-1.

Chicago will have four days rest, while the Cavs, come Monday will have over a week’s rest after sweeping their first round series versus Boston.

Cleveland is the No. 2 seed and the Bulls the No. 3 seed, but that only means the Cavs will get one more home game, which could be important due to Cleveland’s record at home, but in this rivalry home court should not matter all that much.

Without Love in the lineup, the Cavaliers will be looking to Tristan Thompson. The sixth man is now going to play an even more important role of filling in for Love. Chicago’s front line with Nikola Mirotic, Joakim Noah and Pau Gasol will put a great deal of pressure on Cleveland’s big men on both ends of the court.

Mirotic has been playing hurt for Chicago with an injured quadriceps, but he hopes to be back to full strength by Monday’s Game 1.

Noah will be a huge key for Chicago in the series. During the season, he did not always play against the center for the opponent, as Gasol often was assigned the opposing center. Noah was likely going to cover Love during this series, but will now likely cover one of the Cavs big men on the post, which will make him that much tougher on defense and that much closer to the hoop for blocked shots and rebounds.

Going into the series even with Love sidelined, the Cavaliers are favored to win. Home court advantage will help, as the Cavs are tough at home. The Bulls are not 100% with Mirotic a question mark. Derrick Rose was inconsistent for most of the first round against Milwaukee and that could work against the Bulls during this series as well. Any team with LeBron James at the helm will be tough the beat.

Pick: This series could go the full seven, but I like Cleveland in six 4-2.