Bulls vs. Clippers game preview and thread: playing for fools’ gold

Jan 31, 2023 - 11:14 PM

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There is a team out there that will beat some of the best teams in the league but lose to the worst. They’ve beaten the Celtics 3 times this year, and just beat the Sixers. They’ve also lost to the Bulls, who are currently in the lottery.

I’m talking about the Orlando Magic. They have those aforementioned good wins plus other Ws against the Clippers, Warriors, Mavs, Suns...but nobody thinks of them as a team that is ‘weird’ like the Bulls. It’s just a bad team that has some good players, and with 82 games on the schedule you’re going to beat some teams you’re better than once in a while.

This current Bulls team has not proven they can compete with the best. They just won some regular season games due to schedule, opponent bad luck, or good luck of their own. It happens! And that’s fine if fans or ‘observers’ are fooled by this, but I am already totally red-faced upset that the Bulls front office, whenever they deign to speak again, will cite their team’s performance against better teams as rationale for their team building (or lack thereof).

I think the full-strength Hornets is pretty decent and similar to these Bulls, and the Bulls lost to them. I think the full-strength Magic is also of similar strength, and the Bulls won that game. Tonight’s opponent, the Clippers, are also quite good, but most nights don’t have their best players and, like, NBA teams have off nights!

It’ll be bad enough if AKME pulls a GarPaxian “if only Lonzo was healthy” narrative after this season, imagine if they say “when Goran got sick...”

Injury Report:

Kawhi Leonard and Paul George will be playing. John Wall is out. All of Robert Covington, Reggie Jackson, and Marcus Morris are questionable

For the Bulls, Derrick Jones sprained his ankle last game but did practice and is probable to play

Game Time: 7pm central, NBC Sports Chicago