Eastern Conference Favorites Collide
The two teams with the best odds of taking the Eastern Conference Championship are set to do battle tonight with the Chicago Bulls going in as 4-point favorites as they take on the Cleveland Cavilers.
The Cavs are the favorites to win the East and have the best odds in the NBA of winning the Championship with 13/5. The Bulls have the third best odds, behind the San Antonio Spurs (7/2), with 6/1 odds.
The Bulls are favorites for a lot of reasons. They will have home court advantage, LeBron James had an underwhelming homecoming and the Bulls were really good at slowing down James last season.
James missed eight of his first nine shots on Thursday in his first regular season home game in Cleveland since 2010. He finished with 17 point on 5-of-15 for shooting, showing he may have a bit of rust yet to shake off. Even worse, the Cavs lost the game 95-90. The winning team was the New York Knicks, who were dominated by Chicago just 24 hours earlier.
The Bulls were good at containing James last year. They held him to his lowest scoring average last season with 18.3 points and his worst shooting percentage at 39.2 percent. With the addition of Pau Gasol and a healthy Derrick Rose, they should do an even better job at slowing down James this year.
The Bulls will not only be tasked with stopping James, though. Kevin Love put up 19 points and pulled down 14 rebounds in Cleveland’s last outing, while Kyrie Irving had 22 points and seven assists.
Chicago’s superstar, Rose did not have a great outing in their last game either. Rose only had 13 points and was 3-of-7 on shooting. However, Rose does not have to do all the heavy lifting for Chicago anymore. Gasol put up 21 points and was 7-of-11 shooting and pulled down 11 rebounds, while Taj Gibson got an early start to his Sixth Man of the Year award candidacy by coming off the bench to score 22 points on 10-of-12 shooting.
Chicago is viewed as the only team standing in the way of Cleveland and an NBA Finals appearance. A win tonight will help cement that reputation.
The game starts at 8 p.m. ET.
