When the Chicago Bulls visit the Portland Trail Blazers on Friday night, they are looking for their sixth victory in eight games and are exhibiting signs of making a late-season dash.
Chicago (34-38) is in tenth spot in the Eastern Gathering, having the last play-in compartment by 1 1/2 games over the Indiana Pacers. However, the Bulls are also just one and a half games behind the Toronto Raptors, who are in ninth place, and the Atlanta Hawks, who are in eighth place.
The Chicago Bulls split two games with the Philadelphia 76ers, who are currently in third place. On Monday, the Bulls won in double overtime by a score of 109-105, but on Wednesday, they lost 116-91 at home.
In the rematch, the Bulls overcame early deficits of 17-0 and 23-1.
The team begins a three-game road trip with a matchup against Portland (32-40) on Sunday and two games against the Clippers on Monday in Los Angeles.
After suffering a strain to his right quadriceps during the third quarter of Wednesday’s game, Bulls star DeMar DeRozan’s availability is in question. DeRozan scored just four points for the season, missing all seven of his field goal attempts.
The injury to DeRozan did not particularly concern Chicago center Nikola Vucevic.
DeRozan was having a five-game scoring spree prior to Wednesday’s injury, during which he averaged 31.6 points and scored a season-high 49 points in a double-overtime victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Friday.
Portland is opening a five-game homestand and it can’t bear the cost of a lot more misfortunes. The group is 3 1/2 games back of the last two Western Gathering play-in spots.
With their road victory over the Utah Jazz on Wednesday, the Trail Blazers ended a six-game losing streak.
Damian Lillard, a star player for Portland, scored 30 points and had 12 assists, matching his season-high, as the Trail Blazers won for just the fourth time in the last 15 games.
With starters Jerami Award (quadriceps) and Anfernee Simons (foot) out of the arrangement, first-round draft pick Shaedon Sharpe and undrafted second-year ace Trendon Watford got a move on.
Sharpe enlisted vocation highs of 24 places, nine bounce back and four takes, while Watford matched his season best of 21 focuses to give Portland some genuinely necessary capability.
Sharpe’s performance is expected to one day become the norm for the Trail Blazers. The 19-year-old is inexperienced and did not play college ball before being selected seventh overall in the 2022 draft. He missed the last season at Kentucky.
Jusuf Nurkic, a big man, scored 20 more points and is averaging 21.5 points in the last two games.
LaVine scored 36 points in the first meeting, which Chicago hosted and won 129-121 on February 4. The Trail Blazers got 40 points from Lillard.
