{"id":358101,"date":"2025-12-19T13:32:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T13:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/358101\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T13:32:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T13:32:09","slug":"3-things-to-watch-for-in-cavs-vs-bulls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/358101\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Things to watch for in Cavs vs Bulls"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a> could really use a win. They have a chance at revenge tonight against the Chicago Bulls. Let\u2019s look at three things to watch.<\/p>\n

Can the Cavs wake up?<\/p>\n

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The Cavs played a truly awful game in Chicago on Wednesday. It might have been their lowest point of the last four years. Poor effort and even worse focus led to the Cavs dropping their third game in four tries. All of which were against opponents they were heavily favored against.<\/p>\n

There is really no excuse for this. Sure, they are injured. Sure, they\u2019ve had some bad luck in terms of shooting percentages. But, at a certain point, you just have to play harder \u2014 and with more intention.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll be looking for that tonight. It\u2019s almost more important that they fight hard and show energy than for them to actually win the game. This team is desperate for a spark. A valiant effort in a loss would honestly be more refreshing than another lackluster effort where they escape with a win.<\/p>\n

Of course, I\u2019d prefer they just outright win this game. Run the Bulls off the floor, if possible.<\/p>\n

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De\u2019Andre Hunter<\/p>\n

The Cavs recently moved Hunter to the bench. The team is hoping this will allow Hunter to find his stride after weeks of struggling. Playing with the bench takes some pressure off of him and puts Hunter in a position where he can score freely against lesser competition.<\/p>\n

The early results weren\u2019t great. Hunter still found trouble scoring the ball against Chicago and he wasn\u2019t engaged on defense, either.<\/p>\n

Something eventually has to give. Hunter is too important to the Cavs for him to be a net-negative on the floor consistently. He\u2019s proven he can be more impactful, both last season as a sixth man, and as recently as the first few weeks of this season.<\/p>\n

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I\u2019m looking for Hunter to have a big game tonight.<\/p>\n

Darius Garland<\/p>\n

I know it\u2019s hard to feel optimistic when Garland has been playing this poorly. But, I genuinely think he\u2019s starting to turn the corner on the toe injury that severely limited him in the earliest days of the season.<\/p>\n

Garland\u2019s mobility is improving. He\u2019s been more confident and comfortable navigating the floor, and we\u2019ve seen hints of the \u2018old DG\u2019 sprinkled throughout this frustrating stretch of games.<\/p>\n

His shot still isn\u2019t falling. And, I wouldn\u2019t say he is moving at 100%. But he\u2019s getting to his spots consistently enough for me to think that Garland is capable of having a big scoring performance once again. Let\u2019s hope that happens tonight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cleveland Cavaliers could really use a win. They have a chance at revenge tonight against the Chicago…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358102,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[7329,8174,27494,355,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-358101","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-chicago-bulls","9":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","10":"tag-darius-garland","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}