Chicago Bulls (19-21, 10th in the Eastern Conference) vs. Brooklyn Nets (11-27, 13th in the Eastern Conference)<\/p>\n
New York; Friday, 7:30 p.m. EST<\/p>\n
BOTTOM LINE: Brooklyn comes into the matchup against Chicago as losers of five in a row.<\/p>\n
The Nets are 8-16 in Eastern Conference games. Brooklyn is the worst team in the Eastern Conference scoring 42.9 points per game in the paint.<\/p>\n
The Bulls are 13-14 against Eastern Conference opponents. Chicago is fifth in the Eastern Conference with 17.6 fast break points per game led by Coby White averaging 3.5.<\/p>\n
The Nets average 108.8 points per game, 12.1 fewer points than the 120.9 the Bulls give up. The Bulls average 117.5 points per game, 3.6 more than the 113.9 the Nets allow to opponents.<\/p>\n
The teams square off for the second time this season. The Nets won the last meeting 113-103 on Dec. 4. Michael Porter Jr. scored 33 points to help lead the Nets to the win.<\/p>\n
TOP PERFORMERS: Porter is averaging 25.7 points, 7.5 rebounds and 3.3 assists for the Nets. Cam Thomas is averaging 12.9 points over the last 10 games.<\/p>\n
Matas Buzelis is averaging 14.8 points and 5.2 rebounds for the Bulls. Nikola Vucevic is averaging 20.0 points over the last 10 games.<\/p>\n
LAST 10 GAMES: Nets: 2-8, averaging 107.6 points, 38.9 rebounds, 24.2 assists, 9.3 steals and 5.3 blocks per game while shooting 44.9% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 113.8 points per game.<\/p>\n
Bulls: 4-6, averaging 111.8 points, 45.8 rebounds, 29.2 assists, 6.0 steals and 5.3 blocks per game while shooting 46.2% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 116.7 points.<\/p>\n
INJURIES: Nets: Haywood Highsmith: out (knee), Ziaire Williams: day to day (illness).<\/p>\n
Bulls: Noa Essengue: out for season (shoulder), Josh Giddey: out (hamstring), Zach Collins: day to day (toe).<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive<\/a> and data from Sportradar<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chicago Bulls (19-21, 10th in the Eastern Conference) vs. Brooklyn Nets (11-27, 13th in the Eastern Conference) New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399009,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[196373,966,355,1063,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-408393","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-196373","9":"tag-article","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-nba-basketball","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408393","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=408393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408393\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}